A Toronto man who’s fired two lawyers on the eve of his trial for charges linked to a wild police chase from Sarnia to London nearly four years ago that sent a mother and daughter to hospital in critical condition is considering rehiring his original lawyer.
But a Sarnia judge warned Mushin Aden whoever he winds up hiring, or if he chooses to represent himself, his trial, now set for next January, will not be scuttled a third time.
Aden’s trial was initially supposed to take place in February 2022, but it was canceled after he parted ways with local criminal defense lawyer Ken Marley a few weeks earlier. Then last month, mere days before the rescheduled trial was finally expected to start, lawyer Jordan Silver with the Worsoff Law Firm in North York told a Sarnia judge Aden no longer wanted them representing him.
Superior Court Justice Russell Raikes granted Aden’s request to change lawyers one more time, but added he was very concerned about another delay in getting the 2019 case to court. He also warned him if he does this again on the eve of trial he will still be going ahead and he’ll have to represent himself.
On Friday in assignment court, where all of the cases in Sarnia’s busy Superior Court of Justice were addressed, Perla Espinal, a lawyer from Marley’s Sarnia- and Windsor-based office, said Aden was considering hiring him again. But it wasn’t official yet, so Espinal asked for the case to be adjourned to the next assignment court in April to confirm he was hired and to set a trial date at that time.
“No,” Raikes replied sharply. “We’re setting a trial date.”
The judge said they can set the trial dates based on Marley’s schedule, but he reminded Aden about the warning he gave him last month.
“This has been adjourned and adjourned and adjourned and that dance is over,” he told the accused. “We’ll book it to Mr. Marley’s schedule and then if he doesn’t get retained, Mr. Aden, you still have a trial date.”
With Marley unavailable for a potentially lengthy trial through most of this year, it was set for next January.
“Mr. Aden, I strongly recommend, sir, that you finalize your arrangements with Mr. Marley, and if not Mr. Marley then you better find somebody PDQ (pretty damn quick), because you’ve got a trial scheduled for January that’s going ahead. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he replied.
Assistant Crown attorney Aniko Coughlan previously said a lot of effort has gone into organizing the two canceled trials, noting about 35 witnesses had been called and three police agencies – Sarnia, London and the OPP – are involved.
Aden, 23 when he was arrested in 2019, was ordered in the fall of 2020 to stand trial on charges of using a weapon or imitation firearm during a robbery, disguise with intent, dangerous driving, flight from police, possession of property obtained by crime with a value less than $5,000, and using an imitation firearm.
A car chase started at the TD Canada Trust branch on the east end of Sarnia on July 28, 2019. Police said two male suspects wielding what appeared to be guns held up the bank and fled the scene before officers could arrive.
The ensuing chase led the pursuing OPP officers east on Highway 402 into London, where a police cruiser involved in the investigation collided with a taxi. Two passengers in the cab, a mother and child, were rushed to London hospital with serious injuries.
Their horrific injuries were later detailed in a $13-million lawsuit.
Hassan Ali, 21, was facing the same initial set of charges as Aden, but he pleaded guilty in March 2020 to bank robbery and wearing a disguise and was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.
In April 2020, the Special Investigations Unit, Ontario’s police watchdog, said Middlesex OPP Const. Timothy Groves was charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and one count of dangerous driving, but he pleaded guilty later that fall to a lesser offense under Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act and the criminal charges were withdrawn.
-with files from the London Free Press