In her closing address to jurors this past week, prosecutor Liz Nadeau suggested some of them might have been surprised to learn “chain rips” are even a thing in Toronto.She was referring to thieves grabbing jewelry — usually gold chains — from around the necks of strangers, something the man on trial for first-degree murder was accused of doing early Oct. 5, 2014, before fatally shooting Andrew Surage, a 47-year-old innocent husband and father who had tried to intervene in the robbery.After hearing only three days of evidence, the jury deliberated for less than a day before returning with a guilty verdict early Tuesday night. Clifton Vassel, 32, received an automatic sentence of life in prison.What jurors didn’t know was that Vassel had amassed a lengthy criminal record with convictions for firearms, assault and threatening death and is already serving a life sentence — imposed last year — for five attempted murders and related weapons offences. Nor was the jury aware that six weeks after killing Surage, Vassel was chain ripping — again — at gunpoint.On Nov. 16, 2014, he and his accomplices accosted two strangers in the washroom area of the Garden Restaurant on Dundas St. West, near Bay St. The thugs helped themselves to the two gold chains worn around the neck of Dennis Green, an unarmed man out enjoying a peaceful evening.When Green’s friend, Tariq Mohammed, tried to help, he got thumped by a gun. The pair escaped from the back of the Chinese restaurant but didn’t make it past the front counter. Two men fired bullets into Mohammed, killing the 31-year-old less than 90 seconds after the chain rip.Vassel and three others were arrested for the murder but those charges were later dropped. Video surveillance cameras captured the chain rip, however, leaving Vassel with no choice but to plead guilty to the robbery. He received a 10-year sentence. Last summer, a jury acquitted a fourth man, Havard McKe ...
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