Tami willing to drop review But asks for compassion for dad Thursday 29 May 1997 Staff Reporter The Province

Tami Morrisroe says she's ready to make a deal. Morrisroe said yesterday that Justice Minister Allan Rock told her this week that a bid to get her father, Sid Morrisroe, out of prison on compassionate grounds could not go ahead while another review of his conviction was under way. So Tami Morrisroe has written a letter to Rock's office saying she will drop her longtime request for a judicial review of her father's conviction if he is let out under Section 749 of the Criminal Code on compassionate grounds. "My father's safety is more important to me than anything else," said Morrisroe in a telephone interview. "I worry about him every day." Tami Morrisroe is living in an undisclosed location under the witness-protection program after working for the RCMP to help bust an alleged mobster implicated in drug-smuggling and murder. Her story is the subject of at least one book as well as a possible TV-movie deal. Her father, now suffering from a serious heart condition, was found guilty of planning the 1983 murder of Penthouse nightclub owner Joe Philliponi. He has maintained his innocence. Sid Morrisroe was moved from a minimum-security prison to a maximum-security prison after his daughter's story was told in The Province last month by columnist Bob Stall. Tami, who wants her father released into the witness-protection program with electronic monitoring, promised in her letter to Rock to "cease all public and media activity" if Sid is released from prison. Using a number of appeals through the justice department and a series of publicity stunts, Morrisroe has for years waged a very public fight to have her father freed. Rock's office could not be reached for comment last night.

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