Brampton lawyer accused in U.S. of assisting international murder plot

A high-profile Brampton-based lawyer has been accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of advising a former Canadian Olympian to commit murder.

Deepak Paradkar, 62, has since been arrested by the RCMP, which has joined a probe with the FBI that involves the search for fugitive Ryan Wedding, 44, wanted for international drug trafficking.

Wedding competed for Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. He is wanted for the murder of two Caledon residents and a Brampton man, drug trafficking, and his alleged involvement in the murder of an FBI witness in Colombia. Wedding is believed to be in Mexico. The OPP say the two people murdered in Caledon were mistakenly targeted.

It is the murder in Colombia that connects Paradkar to the case, said U.S. Assistant Attorney Bill Essayli at a Wednesday news conference in Washington.

Acting as Wedding’s lawyer, Paradkar allegedly advised Wedding to kill the witness to eliminate any incriminating evidence that could be presented in court, according to Essayli.

U.S. authorities have charged Paradkar with providing Wedding with illicit advice about the murder of the witness, and court documents to which the former snowboarder should not have had access, which involved information about other cases and clients. Paradkar is going through the process of being extradited to the United States.

Both Paradkar and Wedding are presumed innocent, as none of the charges have been proven in court.

Paradkar is well known at the Brampton courthouse for taking on attention-grabbing cases. He has represented Dellen Millard, who was involved in three murders, and has defended clients in several drug cases, advertising himself on Instagram as @cocaine_lawyer.

Wedding is on the FBI’s most wanted list, and U.S. indictments for his arrest allege he maintains a criminal enterprise that brings bulk amounts of cocaine into the United States and Canada.

He was convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010. U.S. authorities have alleged that after Wedding’s release from prison, he resumed drug trafficking under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.

Meanwhile, several other Canadians have been arrested for extradition to the United States in connection with the ongoing drug trafficking probe into Wedding.

“Our work is not done. Fugitive Ryan Wedding remains one of the top threats to Canadian public safety,” said RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme, who took part in the news conference.

Officials allege Wedding issued a bounty on the Colombian man through a post on the Canadian-run website The Dirty News featuring a picture of the witness, who was later shot to death in a Medellin restaurant.

U.S. authorities charged the website’s co-founder, Gursewak Singh Bal, 31, of Mississauga, alleging he agreed not to post about Wedding in exchange for money, and instead posted a photo of the witness before his murder.

Essayli said U.S. authorities seized the website on Tuesday, and it no longer exists.

U.S. immigration action was also taken against Paradkar’s daughter, Madeline, 27, a lawyer who lives in Chicago.

The other Canadians arrested include Atna Ohna, 40, and Edwin Basora-Hernandez, 31, from Quebec, Allistair Chapman, 33, and Ahmad Nabil Zitoun, 35, from Alberta, and Rolan Sokolovski, 37, from Toronto.

Law enforcement said it continues to search for 32-year-old Rasheed Pascua Hossain from Vancouver and 35-year-old Tommy Demorizi from Montréal, who is believed to be in the Dominican Republic.

— with files from Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press