A Thunder Bay man has had his drug conviction overturned in the Ontario Court of Appeal and a new trial has been ordered.
47 year old Keith John Ritchie was originally arrested as part of the city police’s Project Dolphin investigation from 2012.
He was eventually convicted of trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and marijuana along with participating in or contributing to the activities of a criminal organization.
In 2017, based on a joint submission from the defence and prosecution, Justice Terrence Platana sentenced Ritchie to nine and a half years behind bars.
The appeals court ruling centred around information used from someone else’s Blackberry smartphone, which it felt was not enough for the conviction.
That smartphone belonged to now convicted drug dealer John Tsekouras.