A judge will decide whether investigators can keep the seized phones of Calgary’s former mayor and a former city councillor for longer as part of an investigation into allegations of municipal corruption.
Lawyers for former Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek and former Ward 4 councillor Sean Chu were in court Wednesday to make arguments against an application by the Calgary Police Service to keep the phones for nine more months.
Gondek’s phone was seized three months ago, as was Chu’s cellphone, an Apple watch and a tablet, according to sworn affidavits signed by Det. Matt White, a CPS investigator who has been seconded to the RCMP unit investigating the matter.
White was peppered with questions by Gondek’s lawyer, Rebecca Snukal, in a Calgary courtroom Wednesday morning.
The lead investigator told Snukal that the current version of Cellebrite, the software that CPS uses to extract data from cellphones, can’t access Gondek’s locked iPhone 17.
Court heard there are similar issues with accessing Chu’s phone as well as a phone owned by Nathan Robb, a local developer behind the project that was the subject of the July 2025 land use decision from the previous city council.
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Snukal confirmed that, to date, nobody from the investigative team has asked Gondek for her passcode.
She said police are “relying on hope” that Cellebrite will update its technology to be able to access newer models of iPhones, but that there are no plans to find other methods to access the phones.
“There’s hope but there’s also the idea that technology is constantly evolving,” White testified.
“The problem here is you don’t have a scintilla of evidence that Cellebrite is actually even working on this issue,” argued Chu’s lawyer, Shamsher Kothari.
According to court documents, the investigation is focused on a land-use application in front of the previous city council last summer, which was defeated in a 6-6 tie, but later was approved following a reconsideration motion brought forward by Chu.
Gondek wasn’t in attendance for the first vote, but was present for the second vote, which was 8-5 after Chu changed his vote.
The lead detective said in an affidavit that police received information that claimed local development consultant David White allegedly “had been offering campaign donations that exceeded the maximum allowed to councillors, in exchange for them tabling a reconsideration motion.”
“A search of White’s phone yielded evidence of the offences and it was determined that Gondek had provided guidance to White on a tactic to approach another councillor in an effort to secure a reconsideration motion,” the officer’s affidavit read.
Another affidavit from Det. White claims White’s phone included evidence that alleges Chu was approached by White “in the hopes of securing a reconsideration motion.”
“Chu advised David White to keep conversations to his personal phone as his work phone would be subject to Freedom of Information requests,” the affidavit read.
Det. White testified that he has the conversations between Gondek and the development consultant from White’s phone but can’t determine if any information has been deleted from those conversations.
“I’d like to see them side by side,” he said. “I can tell you there were attempts of messages being deleted… throughout this investigation I have located correspondence and communications with all parties that have attempted to be deleted.”
Justice Allan Fradsham has reserved his decision to extend how long police can hold the phones belonging to Gondek, Chu, and Robb.
None of the allegations in the affidavits have been proven in court and no charges have been laid.
The lawyers representing each of those named in the affidavits have declined to comment on the allegations.
Another hearing on the matter is scheduled for next month.
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