PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "At trial, there was no forensic or eyewitness testimony linking Sheriffe to the crime and DNA evidence raised against him was later found to be the wrong DNA. Then, almost on the eve of trial, a junior Toronto police officer with no involvement in the case surfaced with what he said was damning information from two confidential informants. Det. Const. Aman Nasser told prosecutors his informants told him Asfaha was “putting in work” to join the Jamestown Crips street gang. Sheriffe, the informants said, was the leader of a Jamestown Crips subset called the “Hustle Squad.” One of the sources even told Nasser that Sheriffe had “bodies to his name,” according to a court document. The informants both received compensation (either cash or a reduction in other pending charges) for the information, according to court documents the Star obtained. Under Canadian law, their identity remains secret to this day, and they were not required to testify."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY" (Lawyer Samara) Secter further questions why Nasser, a junior officer at the time, was ever allowed to provide “expert” testimony on gangs. She noted that the legal world has changed its approach to this sort of testimony since the case was tried in 2012. “Recent social science evidence suggests that this kind of police ‘expertise’ often has anti-Black racist underpinnings,” Secter said. Just because a group of Black men are associating — playing basketball, hanging around at a mall — does not mean they are gangsters, she said. That new research reveals that, at times, a police officer’s “expertise” amounts to “stereotypes and generalizations,” she said.In Sheriffe’s case, Nasser was qualified by Ewaschuk as an expert. Secter has concerns with that, and notes that judges have a “gatekeeping role” when it comes to vetting expert witnesses. She said an expert needs “to have a methodology and evidentiary foundation for their opinion that can be tested”; none of that was provided by Nasser, according to transcripts of his testimony. Recent research in Canada and the US shows that, at times, courts and police “conflate racial identity with gang identity.” Her firm has retained an academic, Raekash Walters, who has “specific expertise in the way the Canadian state has criminalized Black culture and Black connection.”
SUB-HEADING: "Sheriffe’s conviction amounts to a “miscarriage of justice,” his new lawyers say — but the man at the centre of the Star’s “Murder on Mount Olive” investigation still faces a long road to proving his innocence.
Updated May 13, 2026
GIST: "The jury at Chris Sheriffe’s trial was never supposed to know about the “hearsay” gang evidence a pair of confidential informants allegedly told a junior Toronto police officer. The judge had already excluded that information from Sheriffe’s trial — but then the jury heard it anyway.
According to the top Toronto law firm now representing Sheriffe, that revelation, plus what they characterize as anti-Black racism, amounts to the “miscarriage of justice” at the heart of why the former soccer star has spent the last 14 years in prison for murder.
“We believe that he was wrongfully convicted,” says Samara Secter, a partner in Addario Law Group. She and lawyer Rebecca Amoah have spent a year digging into Sheriffe’s case, prompted by a Toronto Star investigation and podcast. They have taken the case pro bono and are in the process of drafting a special application to the federal justice department.
Sheriffe was convicted in 2012 of first-degree murder for driving the “getaway” car for the daylight killing of furniture maker Bishen Golaub. Sheriffe is now in his 14th year of a life sentence, serving his time in Collins Bay Institution near Kingston.
“They are amazing lawyers,” Sheriffe said in a recent telephone interview. “I really appreciate what they are doing. It may seem like a small thing but when I call them, they know my case right off the top of their heads. That’s not something I experienced before with other lawyers.”
Golaub, 34, was shot dead in August 2009 as he leaned over a low fence on Mount Olive Drive in north Etobicoke to ask barbecue guests if the food was ready. Although there were no eyewitnesses nor forensics linking anyone, Sheriffe, 19, and Awet Asfaha, 24, were arrested within hours because a car they were in had been spotted in the area.
An all-white jury of 11 people (the lone Black juror was excused by the judge for health reasons) convicted Asfaha and Sheriffe — who are both Black — of first-degree murder.
The Crown’s theory was that Sheriffe, driving his mother’s car, purposely stopped around the corner from the barbecue to let Asfaha out to commit the shooting. The Crown contended that Asfaha shot Golaub, and then returned to what the court labelled the “getaway car.”
Sheriffe testified this was not true. He told his 2012 trial he was simply driving Asfaha home, stopped his car at Asfaha’s request and waited. He said when Asfaha returned, he had no idea a man had been shot.
The trial focused on the question of gang membership — and that is where Sheriffe’s new lawyers believe they have found a “miscarriage of justice.”
Golaub, the victim, was a father of five with no gang ties — police said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Asfaha had a criminal record for drug dealing, but no gang ties. Sheriffe, 19 at the time, was a former soccer star recovering from injuries and was a few weeks away from starting a union job as a carpenter’s apprentice. He had no criminal record, and despite Toronto Police homicide and gun-and-gang detectives scouring their records leading up to trial, investigators found no gang involvement.
At trial, there was no forensic or eyewitness testimony linking Sheriffe to the crime and DNA evidence raised against him was later found to be the wrong DNA.
Then, almost on the eve of trial, a junior Toronto police officer with no involvement in the case surfaced with what he said was damning information from two confidential informants. Det. Const. Aman Nasser told prosecutors his informants told him Asfaha was “putting in work” to join the Jamestown Crips street gang. Sheriffe, the informants said, was the leader of a Jamestown Crips subset called the “Hustle Squad.”
One of the sources even told Nasser that Sheriffe had “bodies to his name,” according to a court document.
The informants both received compensation (either cash or a reduction in other pending charges) for the information, according to court documents the Star obtained. Under Canadian law, their identity remains secret to this day, and they were not required to testify.
Secter, Sheriffe’s new lawyer, said she was “moved” by the Star’s investigative reporting on the case. When the lawyer reached out to Sheriffe in prison, she had a sense that she could make a contribution.
“I was inspired by his patience and kindness,” she said. “I wanted to see for myself what, if anything, I could do to help.”
Sheriffe’s lawyers spent months going over the original trial transcripts, decisions made at various levels of courts that heard the case, and delved into social science research related to “police expertise in gang membership.” It’s in relation to Nasser’s testimony that Sheriffe’s lawyers believe they have a case to prove his innocence.
What the jury should not have heard about Chris Sheriffe;
On May 3, 2012, in the absence of the jury, trial Judge Eugene Ewaschuk made a ruling about Det. Const. Nasser’s evidence. Court officials had previously told the Star they could not find the transcript of this ruling, but Sheriffe’s new lawyers have since unearthed the documents. They reveal that Ewaschuk would allow general testimony from Nasser about some of Sheriffe’s friends, along with a photo of Sheriffe with the men, but was “excluding” Nasser from relaying to the jury that his sources told him of Sheriffe’s “membership in the Jamestown Crips.”
But when Nasser testified, that’s exactly what he did. Nasser labelled Sheriffe as the leader of the “Hustle Squad,” which Nasser said was part of the Jamestown Crips. (Sheriffe and several friends later testified that was the name of their pickup basketball team — because they “hustle” on the court — and that the photo court saw of Sheriffe and his friends was taken after a friend’s funeral).
Justice Ewaschuk didn’t curtail Nasser in front of the jury, according to the trial transcripts. Indeed, the judge, in his charge to the jury, repeated Nasser’s evidence about Sheriffe being in a gang. Sheriffe’s former lawyers didn’t raise Ewaschuk’s previous ruling, nor did other lawyers who argued Sheriffe’s appeals at the Ontario Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada. Sheriffe lost both appeals.
His new lawyer's want to change that:
“It was obvious that the hearsay from a confidential informant should never have been admitted,” Secter said in an interview.
“However, when we were looking at the issue, we started to wonder, why was (Nasser) testifying at all?”
Confidential informants are treated with kid gloves in Canadian courts. Once someone is labelled a “CI” they remain anonymous. They never testify, and defence lawyers cannot cross-examine them to see if what they are saying is true.
Everything Nasser relayed about his CIs at trial has since been adopted by subsequent courts. In the Supreme Court of Canada case records dismissing Sheriffe’s appeal, the court notes: “At trial, a police expert in street gangs testified that, according to confidential informants, Mr. Sheriffe was a member of a gang involved in a gang war.”
In the Star’s original investigation, the Star spoke on background to senior Crown attorneys and defence lawyers who said they had never seen a case where a police officer was allowed to use “hearsay” evidence in this way.
Why did the court let a junior cop testify as an ‘expert’ witness?
Secter further questions why Nasser, a junior officer at the time, was ever allowed to provide “expert” testimony on gangs. She noted that the legal world has changed its approach to this sort of testimony since the case was tried in 2012.
“Recent social science evidence suggests that this kind of police ‘expertise’ often has anti-Black racist underpinnings,” Secter said. Just because a group of Black men are associating — playing basketball, hanging around at a mall — does not mean they are gangsters, she said. That new research reveals that, at times, a police officer’s “expertise” amounts to “stereotypes and generalizations,” she said.
In Sheriffe’s case, Nasser was qualified by Ewaschuk as an expert. Secter has concerns with that, and notes that judges have a “gatekeeping role” when it comes to vetting expert witnesses. She said an expert needs “to have a methodology and evidentiary foundation for their opinion that can be tested”; none of that was provided by Nasser, according to transcripts of his testimony.
Recent research in Canada and the US shows that, at times, courts and police “conflate racial identity with gang identity.” Her firm has retained an academic, Raekash Walters, who has “specific expertise in the way the Canadian state has criminalized Black culture and Black connection.”
There are two avenues for Sheriffe to get a new hearing: First, Secter and Amoah are preparing an application to the federal Criminal Conviction Review Group, which comes under the federal justice department and is set to be eventually replaced by a new body called the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission. Under the current process, the justice minister has the power to order a new trial or to refer the case to the provincial appeals court.
The second avenue is a “faint hope” appeal, which can be made when an inmate serving a life sentence reaches 15 years of their sentence, which Sheriffe will reach in October. Secter is considering making that appeal, but acknowledges that in the “faint hope” system, the inmate typically must admit some level of accountability for the crime to get an early release on parole.
Sheriffe has said for years he will not do this. In the days before his first-degree murder trial, he had the opportunity to plead guilty to a lesser charge in return for a shorter sentence. He declined to do that then, too.
“The problem is,” Sheriffe told the Star, “I can’t take accountability for something I didn’t do, and I won’t do it.”
During his time in prison, Sheriffe has completed dozens of education modules, joined the prison Toastmasters speaking club, and has a position as an inmate representative helping to mediate disputes with prison staff.
Asfaha is in prison in Western Canada and is not pursuing an appeal. He has declined the Star’s request to interview him."
Read the ‘Murder on Mount Olive’ series:
Part 3: From soccer star to inmate 92022: How Chris Sheriffe ended up behind bars
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
