A lot of you know Brian Ridgway in some form or other. Some of you know him as a friend, family member or you know him through a professional relationship.
Whichever way you know him, you know that he is honest, hardworking and always tries to do the best he can for anyone or anything.
Our worst nightmare has happened, Brian has been wrongly accused and charged by the Toronto police and due to his heavy restrictions is nearly unable to run his renovation business in order to support his family and pay his legal fees in this difficult time.
He has retained the well-known firearms lawyer Edward Berlew. He is the best, but the best is not cheap. His fees are $5000 as a retainer and $500 per hour. Our goal is to have the charges dropped, but the crown is trying to paint Brian as a vicious and sinister person who is supplying guns to gangs on the streets of Toronto...... We all know this is not the case.
Because of the terms of his bail, he is unable to operate a computer and unable to live at home with his partner and one year old son. The main problem is I had been on leave to care for Westley our son not anticipating this. Our lawyer says the Toronto Police have wrongly accused Brian in many ways. Not to mention he is one of the straightest people I know and would never consider doing anything illegal. He had a side business and the Toronto Police didn’t do their homework. It’s hard to explain just how hard this is, we went from a supportive happy family and now I feel like a single mother, as Brian has to be with his surety my father at all times; including living with him. We have been struggling with one income and now this. I am normally a very strong person that takes life by the horns but this is even too much for me. I am breaking down every day and reaching out for help.
This is everyone’s worst nightmare, with no means of support, how do you clear yourself of such charges? I am not a stubborn partner not wanting to believe that he is wrong and guilty. We had many lawyers look this all over and they cannot believe what is happening here, we just don’t know where to begin. Brian is the first person to open the door for anyone or give his seat to someone or be there at 6am to help you move!. He has never been involved with the law in the past. This is entirely unbelievable. We are a wreck and it makes it so hard as we have a 12 month old named Westley who you can see in the photos and we worry that trying to make a comfortable sound home for him will be really hard due to the funds the lawyers require to pursue this case. He cannot go anywhere without his surety, fortunately he works everyday with my father so they are together anyhow. It’s hard to explain just how difficult this all is. Brian has a hard time looking at hi son without crying. He never had an intention of doing anything illegal. He was starting a side business to help compensate the lack of an income as we only had one (like so many) once I had Westley.
Brian is and was obsessed with the wild west and Colt Firearms are in high demand and if made before a certain date are considered antique as the ammunition is hard to acquire. Long story short, he made many friends through the different websites and was having a lot of fun trading and talking about these items from over 100 years ago. Boys will be boys. I didn’t see the excitement but everyone is different. The laws surrounding antique guns is a much more complicated then you can imagine. Brian made sure he knew them inside and out as he didn’t want us to have any problems. Our lawyer, Edward Berlew, (google him if you like), claims there was nothing illegal done and my question was (well why are they charging him then, this makes no sense). His response was he sees this repeatedly and most people do not have any funds to take this any further. I myself do not like firearms but I know that these are not individuals that you see on the television that Brian is associated with. They are all very good tax paying people, that are just trying to make a living. I please hope you can understand that we never in a million years saw ourselves in this position and this sort of thing could happen to anyone in regards to anything else.
Brian is one of the gentlest, caring, thoughtful people that would cross the earth for anyone that he thought was getting treated unnecessarily wrong. It’s hard to believe that anyone would be willing to help us but if anyone wants more info, I would love to communicate more.
This is hard for me but imagine not being able to wake up next to your baby every day as Brian has been able to ...
For more information please click here or visit Funded Justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment