She has not been charged. But the Project South allegations have branded her with a ‘scarlet letter’ - Toronto Star

Nishwant Dosanjh, a corporal at the Toronto South, denies allegations that she helped a high-profile inmate facilitate an attempted hit. 

Nishwant Dosanjh, on leave from her job as a corporal at the Toronto South Detention Centre, has ”endured the stress of public, professional and police scrutiny” caused by “misleading statements” made to police, her lawyer says.

Nishwant Dosanjh, a Toronto correctional officer suspected by police of helping a high-profile inmate facilitate an attempted hit on a jail official, has been unfairly branded with a “scarlet letter” by colleagues peddling rumours and misleading claims, her lawyer says.

The main police source of the allegations against Dosanjh, the lawyer charges, was a fellow correctional officer whose unwanted sexual advances toward her were rebuffed — and are now the subject of a workplace harassment complaint.

“Dosanjh has endured the stress of public, professional and police scrutiny over many months now,” her lawyer, Kim Schofield, wrote in a statement shared with the Star.

“She maintains her innocence. She had no part in the attempt on the [jail official].”

In January, investigators filed court documents alleging they believed Dosanjh had helped inmate Gurpreet Singh — behind bars on U.S. charges that he transported cocaine for alleged drug lord Ryan Wedding — to facilitate the June 2025 attack on the jail manager.

Police’s investigation into that botched assassination attempt sparked the sprawling police corruption scandal known as Project South.

Neither Dosanjh nor Singh have been charged in relation to the alleged conspiracy to kill the official, whose identity is protected under a publication ban.

The circumstances have left Dosanjh — who has worked for 14 years at the Toronto South Detention Centre where she holds the rank of corporal — without the chance to refute in court the allegations and insinuations made against her.

“She has been deeply affected by the scarlet letter that has branded all aspects of her life,” Schofield’s statement reads.

In the wake of the release of the documents, which contained Dosanjh’s home address, Dosanjh’s lawyers say she’s had to move out of her Etobicoke condo and in with her family, citing fears for her safety.

Dosanjh and Schofield declined the Star’s requests to interview Dosanjh directly.

Singh’s lawyer in the U.S. case, Brian Greenspan, also emphasized in a statement to the Star in June that his client had not been charged as part of Project South and does not face any charges in Canada.

“Your proposed standard cautionary note that the allegations in the omnibus information to obtain have not ‘been tested in court’; is grossly insufficient and misleading as Mr. Singh has not been charged with any offence months after the execution of the warrants. There is nothing to test and no court to test it.”

Investigators say a photograph of a licence plate, allegedly taken inside a Toronto jail, set off a chain of events that ended with masked gunmen at a public servant’s door.

The allegations against Dosanjh are contained in a document known as an information-to-obtain or “ITO,” filed by Project South investigators to get warrants. The document reflects what the investigators believed at the time the document was filed in January and the allegations contained within have not been tested in court.

In the ITO, police allege that Dosanjh and Singh had previously been in an intimate relationship, with him providing her with gifts, payments for cosmetic surgery and international travel prior to his detention.

Once Singh was detained at the jail, police alleged Dosanjh arranged her schedule to ensure she worked on Singh’s range as much as possible, spending “extraordinarily long periods” in his company, “often in private.”

The January filings alleged that Dosanjh served as an “external facilitator” to Singh, who police believed had “motive to harm” the jail manager, known for his strict enforcement that some at the jail say at times veered into cruelty.

A cellphone photograph of a truck belonging to the jail official. Police say the licence plate was used to find the official’s home address.

Investigators wrote in the document that they suspected Dosanjh took a cellphone photo of the manager’s truck, which police allege was disseminated through Singh’s “associates” until it reached Toronto police Const. Timothy Barnhardt. The documents allege Barnhardt then illegally searched the licence plate to obtain the jail official’s address, which was then circulated within an alleged criminal network.

Investigators chalked up Dosanjh’s alleged involvement to a belief that she held her own animosity toward the official, who they say she suspected of investigating her for corruption.

In her statement, Schofield disputed these allegations.

After the ITO was unsealed in the spring, Schofield hired an independent forensic investigator to probe the claims against Dosanjh contained in the document.

A review of the data police extracted from Dosanjh’s phone found “no evidence” that she received gifts from Singh or any other inmate, or took international trips together, Schofield said. She said there were also no photos of the jail official’s truck on Dosanjh’s phone.

While lawyers for Dosanjh admit she knew Singh prior to his incarceration, they say Dosanjh filed a conflict of interest report once she knew Singh would be detained in the jail.

“Ultimately, our information confirms that Cpl. Dosanjh’s superiors were aware of the conflict of interest with Mr. Singh and did not prohibit her from working on ranges where Mr. Singh was incarcerated at any given time,” Schofield’s statement reads.

The Ministry of the Solicitor General, which oversees Ontario’s jails, did not respond to questions sent by the Star.

Instead, Schofield traced the allegations against Dosanjh to an incident in 2024, involving a colleague of Dosanjh’s, correctional officer Harjod Nagra, who she alleges made a sexual advance on her client.

Dosanjh rejected that advance, according to the statement, and notified a deputy superintendent of the jail.

“When no action was taken by the TSDC, she filed a formal, written complaint with the Workplace Discrimination and Harassment Prevention team,” the statement reads. “No workplace investigation has yet commenced (and) Dosanjh feels that her complaint is not being treated seriously.”

It was just over a year later, the statement alleges, that the same colleague made “misleading statements” and relayed “rumours” to the union and police about Dosanjh.

Nagra did not respond to questions from the Star sent to his government email, and a spokesperson for the union representing Ontario’s correctional officers declined to comment.

In the ITO, investigators write that Nagra told them it was a “false allegation” that he touched Dosanjh. He told police that Dosanjh’s complaint came after she confronted him over concerns he raised to fellow correctional officers about her “(potentially) compromising behaviour,” according to the ITO.

Schofield describes the Toronto South Detention Centre as a “workplace that is male-dominated, and, as in many law-enforcement settings, operates as a ‘boys’ club.’”

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Around 6 a.m. on Feb. 4, as Project South investigators arrested suspects across the GTA, officers “surprised” Dosanjh by showing up at her Etobicoke condo and seizing her cellphone from her hands, according to her lawyer.

A second phone in her possession was also seized, both of which Dosanjh reportedly gave the passcodes to police to access.

“The police searched her residence and found nothing else of investigative value,” Schofield wrote in the statement.

When reached by the Star, York police spokesperson James Dickson said the investigation remains ongoing, adding that “investigators cannot comment on the status of the investigation as it relates to any specific person.”

At the time of publication, Dosanjh’s lawyers say she remains on a paid medical leave, while subject to an ongoing, internal ministry investigation.

Abby O’Brien is a Toronto-based general assignment reporter for the Star. Reach her via email: abbyobrien@thestar.ca