On December 28, 2020, Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Jamie Gillespie was arrested and charged with attempting to intercept private communication, obstructing justice, breach of trust, counselling an offence that is not committed, and obstructing a peace officer.

These charges stemmed from Gillespie’s illegal recordings of fellow Wellington OPP Detachment officers earlier that year supposedly to help fellow Wellington OPP Sgt. Mike Dolderman, who is still awaiting trial on five counts of sexual assault.

The Toronto Star reports Gillespie entered his guilty plea for attempting to intercept private communications on May 17, 2021, and alleges that Gillespie “was prompted” to make the illegal recordings by disgraced OPP Sgt. Mike Dolderman, his close friend since high school. In exchange for the guilty plea all other charges were dropped.

(The Toronto Star has since revised their article to say “the officer made the recordings after a conversation with Sgt. Michael Dolderman” instead of “was prompted to make the recordings by Sgt. Michael Dolderman.”)

The Honourable Justice Jon Sigurdson gave Sgt. Jamie Gillespie an 18-month suspended sentence because he expressed remorse and confessed without prompting from investigators.

The fact he lied to those same investigators repeatedly before he confessed was, it appears, irrelevant.

The Gillespie hearing revealed, for the first time, that the sexual assault allegations against Sgt. Mike Dolderman come from colleagues at the Wellington OPP.

According to the agreed statement of facts read into the court record, Gillespie said that Const. Sukhvinder Singh Toor, who faces the same charges as Gillespie, secretly recorded fellow officers talking about the allegations against Dolderman some time between January 24 and 27, 2020.

Less than four months later, May 17, 2021, Gillespie pleaded guilty to attempting to intercept private communications. Because of the remorse he showed by confessing to investigators unprompted, the quickness with which he pleaded guilty, his exemplary record with the OPP, and his lack of any prior criminal convictions, Justice Sigurdson said he would accept a joint submission from the Crown and defence, and sentenced Gillespie to an 18-month suspended sentence.

Brenda Dolderman, Sgt. Dolderman’s wife, is awaiting trial for charges of “intimidation of a justice system participant, attempt to obstruct justice and extortion.”