Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford angrily denied on Friday that he had smoked crack cocaine, after a newspaper said it had seen video footage showing him puffing from a pipe and wisecracking.
Ford told reporters the claim is “ridiculous” while his lawyer has called media descriptions of the video “false and defamatory.”
“How can you indicate what the person is actually doing or smoking?” Ford’s lawyer Dennis Morris demanded, according to the Toronto Star.
The daily said it had been approached by drug dealers looking to sell the video, saying it was shot using a cellphone by a person who claimed to have supplied Ford with the illegal drug.
The paper said it viewed the 90-second video but declined to pay for it.
US online news and gossip site Gawker also reported that it had seen the footage and Vancouver newspaper The Province has launched a reader appeal to raise the 100,000 dollars the video’s owners are said to have asked for.
Said to have been shot in recent months, it reportedly shows a man resembling Ford lolling back in a chair in a room, inhaling from what is believed to be a glass crack pipe, according to the report.
Throughout the video the subject’s eyes are half-closed, and he sometimes waves his arms erratically. He raises a lighter several times and moves it in a circling motion beneath the bowl of the pipe, then inhales deeply.
Toronto mayor denies smoking crack on video
