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Zotz
1979 Keith Richards Toronto Trial Transcript (Sotheby's Auction 2022)

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SomeTorontoGirl


Courtroom sketch. There’s a story here, but it’s not mine to tell.

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Zotz
'Come On'....."Oh, do give us a hint, just give us a glimmer"

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SomeTorontoGirl
I first heard this story from a friend of a friend a few years back. He has been trying to register to post here but has encountered persistent issues and has finally handed it off to me to have the honour of posting. So glad it’s finally seeing the light of day. Over to you, David…




In October 1978, I was a journalism student at Ryerson Polytechnical in Toronto. I was also a Stones fan and I persuaded the editor of the journalism school's newspaper to let me cover the trial.

Because I was not a member of the "official media" I didn't know how I might be treated and whether I would even get in. So I thought I would arrive before everyone else to see if I could at least get a seat in the gallery. I arrived around 7:30 am at the main courthouse building, hours before the trial. The place was pretty much empty of people.

I went into the washroom and while at the sink, a young guy at the next sink asks me why I am at the courthouse.I tell him and he says:"You've got to meet my girlfriend." He took me down the hall and introduced me to a young, blind woman. He asked her to show me "the photographs". She pulled a couple of small photo albums from her bag and gave them to me. Inside were personal snapshots taken by her boyfriend of the Stones onstage, and of his girlfriend backstage with the Stones in smiling group shots.

I then realized who I was talking to because I had read about this couple in Rolling Stone magazine----they followed nearly every gig of the Stones 78 tour and the band kind of looked out for her, giving her free tickets and asking their roadies to make sure she had front of stage access. She was the woman who Keith later called his "blind angel".

I moved on from them to find the courtroom where the trial was going to be held and ran into a radio reporter for ABC News who was looking for the same thing. As we were talking, a Commissionaire (security person) walked up to us and said it would be a couple of hours before the trial started but if we wanted he would unlock the courtroom and we could sit at the reporter's table. So he led us into the empty courtroom and took us to the media table. It was a small side table with only two chairs and about five feet from the box where the accused---Keith---would sit. It was a small courtroom holding maybe 75 people. So, that's where we sat in what turned out to be prime seats while the rest of the late-arriving media had to sit in the public gallery.

The trial had many memorable moments---Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of Saturday Night LIve was a character witness on behalf of Keith, testifying to the importance of Keith's art and why he selected the Stones to appear on SNL.

Dan Ackroyd, one of the stars of SNL,was there offering moral support. There were no seats left, so he actually sat on the floor, beneath the Judge's box and kept flashing thumbs up to Keith. Keith didn't acknowledge him and was quiet and tired looking,

I still have my trial notes and they make for interesting reading eg, how lawyer Austin Cooper described Keith's living expenses from the previous years (in the hundreds of thousands of dollars) to demonstrate that the drugs were not for sale, as he had no need to raise money, but were for his own personal use and so he should be treated as an addict not a drug dealer.

When it was over I had about an hour to file my story so I raced back to Ryerson and did that.

The next day I opened the Toronto Star to read their coverage and there was the courtroom sketch. In the foreground are three impressions of Keith, and in the background I'm the guy in the blazer. Beside me, with the curly hair and glasses. is the ABC reporter.

The following year I went to my first Stones concert. It was at the Oshawa arena and was one of the court ordered benefit performances for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

Nearly 25 years later I contacted the sketch artist and arranged to buy the original artwork. It is framed and hangs on a wall at my home

Thanks to SomeTorontoGirl for relaying this story, and hello to everyone at IORR.

David
PEI / Canada