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A man accused of serving as the “de facto bank” for a violent criminal enterprise allegedly helmed by former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding will stay behind bars after Ontario’s highest court upheld a decision to deny him bail.
Rolan Sokolovski filed an application for bail review in March, asking the Appeal Court to consider his recent arthritis diagnosis as new evidence and arguing the judge who denied his release made several errors in law.
Sokolovski, a 38-year-old jeweller and former professional poker player, was among several Canadians arrested last November in a U.S. investigation into a billion-dollar international drug trafficking ring allegedly run by Wedding.
He is alleged to have played a key role by laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in assets through his jewelry business and securing luxury items for Wedding, who was taken into U.S. custody earlier this year after a lengthy manhunt.
Sokolovski’s lawyers proposed to have him released under strict conditions including house arrest, electronic monitoring and four sureties.
But the Appeal Court found no reversible errors in the judge’s bail decision and declined to admit Sokolovski’s arthritis diagnosis as fresh evidence, keeping him behind bars pending an extradition hearing.
High risk that man could ‘abscond,’ judge says
Defence lawyers had argued the application judge had erred in concluding Sokolovski concealed details of his financial situation, but the Appeal Court sided with the judge, saying Sokolovski’s “failure to provide a credible picture” of his finances gave rise to concern.
“I agree with the application judge’s conclusion that the applicant’s lavish lifestyle remains unexplained, and the evidence amply supports that he is hiding his finances,” the Appeal Court judge said.
“As a result, the risk that the applicant would abscond is, as the application judge concluded, very high.”
The Appeal Court judge was also not persuaded that introducing the arthritis diagnosis as fresh evidence would have impacted the outcome of the bail decision.
“While this condition is likely painful, there is no evidence that it is debilitating or requires treatment that prevents flight,” the judge said.
The court further rejected Sokolovski’s arguments that the application judge didn’t give enough weight to the fact that he had opportunities to flee before his arrest and didn’t take them.
The application judge fairly assessed Sokolovski’s flight risk in the face of serious charges and a potentially lengthy sentence if he’s found guilty, the Appeal Court found.
“What was previously a possibility has since become a grim reality. The application judge made no error in assessing that this change in circumstances augmented the applicant’s risk of flight,” the Appeal Court judge said.
Calgary man also loses bid to over bail ruling overturned
The decision comes as a Calgary man also charged in the Wedding case lost his own bid to have his bail ruling overturned this week.
An Alberta judge had denied bail in February for Allistair Chapman, saying U.S. prosecutors have a strong case against him and releasing him would undermine the public’s confidence in the justice system. The ruling was upheld Wednesday.
U.S. prosecutors allege Chapman helped arrange the killing of an FBI informant by providing the man’s photo to a co-accused and paying for it to be posted online.
As the extradition process continues in Canada, authorities in the U.S. are preparing to bring Ryan Wedding to trial.
The Thunder Bay, Ont., native was arrested in Mexico in January and taken back to the United States, where he was listed among the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives.
The 44-year-old former athlete is alleged to have ordered the murders of several people, including a witness who could testify against him in a 2024 narcotics case.
