Alleged Sudbury biker to be sentenced for accessing tax info of police officers, rival bikers

Exactly what Christopher Casola's ties were to criminal biker gangs is something that might finally get cleared up at his sentencing hearing today.

He was arrested in the spring of 2016 on 11 charges, including committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization.

Sudbury police alleged that Casola was a member of the Bacchus Motorcycle Club and his bail conditions included him staying away from the members of rival biker gangs.

But then last month, after several days in court spent selecting a jury for his coming trial, Casola suddenly pleaded guilty to three of the charges and the rest were dropped, including those formally tying him to bikers.

If his case had gone to trial, many details about the current activities of gangs operating in the Sudbury area could have come to light.

After several tumultuous years where a biker war seemed to be being waged in Sudbury, including the bombing of the city police station, the gangs seemed to have faded into the background.

"I'd love to say yes, but the answer is no," says Anthony Renton, the operations manager of the Ontario Provincial Police's biker enforcement unit. 

"Because you are not seeing outlaw motorcycle gang members in your community, riding their motorcycles, it doesn't mean they're not involved."

Renton says that Bacchus has some chapters in Ontario, but none in Sudbury. He says one thing people might see in the city is the rising presence of the Hooligans, a support club for the Hell's Angels. 

A trial might have also gone over more of what happened at the Sudbury tax data centre before Casola was charged.

The Canada Revenue agency declined an interview, but in a statement told CBC that Casola was hired in 2000 and rose to the rank of assessment processing clerk.

The agency says that someone told them of Casola's "off duty conduct" which prompted an investigation, which police were part of as well.

It was discovered that he accessed the data of three known members of criminal biker gangs and two police officers in 2014.

The Canada Revenue Agency's statement says that it "has several preventative measures which includes regular reviews of system access permissions to ensure they are limited to the minimum necessary for the employee's job duties, as well as proactive monitoring of accesses to detect fraudulent or unauthorized accesses."

It also details the screening process when new employees are hired and that they "must have been granted a minimum of a reliability status before they are hired, and must maintain their security clearance throughout the term of their employment."

"That's extremely troubling,"  says Alberta MP Pat Kelly, who is the Conservative revenue critic.

"Canadians are going to want to know and have confidence that this is an isolated one-off."

This sentencing hearing comes a week after the CBC revealed that Canada Revenue Agency employees regularly look at files they aren't supposed to have access to.

Sharon Polsky, president of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada, says these problems have existed for decades and she feels the only solution is stiffer penalties for those who allow data breaches, including possible jail time.

"And our elected representatives in Ottawa have not seen fit to bump up the laws, change them so they really have some teeth," she says.