Manitoba·UpdatedA veteran Winnipeg officer is expected to serve a prison sentence after pleading guilty to a number of charges, including breach of trust, offering indignity to human remains, theft under $5,000 and attempting to obstruct justice.Const. Elston Bostock guilty of breach of trust, indignity to human remains, theftCaitlyn Gowriluk · CBC News · Posted: Nov 07, 2025 11:35 AM EST | Last Updated: 25 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Const. Elston Bostock, who has been with the Winnipeg Police Service for over 20 years, pleaded guilty to a number of charges on Friday. (Submitted)A veteran Winnipeg officer is expected to serve a prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges including breach of trust, offering indignity to human remains, theft under $5,000 and attempting to obstruct justice.Const. Elston Bostock, who has worked with the Winnipeg Police Service for more than 22 years, was charged after a lengthy investigation, dubbed Project Fibre, that began in April 2024. Allegations against Bostock included that he shared internal police information, interfered with a police scene and shared a photo of a partially naked dead woman that he took while on duty.The investigation, which discovered offences ranging back to 2016, began after police received “reports from multiple confidential sources that the accused had been associating with and providing police information to non-police actors involved in illicit activity,” said an agreed statement of facts read to court on Friday.While some of those allegations came to light early on, others were not discovered until Bostock’s personal cellphone was analyzed following his arrest.Bostock, who sat in the prisoner’s box wearing a grey crewneck sweatshirt, looked down at the floor and at times put his head in his hands as details of the allegations he was pleading guilty to were read out.”You are pleading guilty this morning to a number of charges, because you admit guilt on those charges?” Richard Wolson, Bostock’s lawyer, asked him during a plea inquiry.”Yes,” Bostock said.The guilty pleas were entered before Court of King’s Bench Justice Kenneth Champagne in a Winnipeg courtroom as part of a deal that will see Bostock’s lawyers ask for nothing less than a penitentiary sentence and provincial Crown attorneys cap their request at six years.Bostock still faces federal drug charges, for which prosecutors are expected to ask for a consecutive sentence of a year, court heard.Letters to defence lawyersThe guilty pleas come after a letter was sent last month by the Manitoba Prosecution Service to a number of defence lawyers who had cases where Bostock was involved.”Out of an abundance of caution, you are receiving this letter because a conviction was entered on the above charge(s), and Officer Bostock had involvement in the incident’s file,” reads part of the letter, a copy of which was obtained by CBC News.The letter, signed by Winnipeg trial director Jennifer Mann, went on to list the charges Bostock was facing at the time. A notice to the profession from Legal Aid Manitoba dated Oct. 31 then referenced letters “regarding the conduct of a number of police officers” who “have been charged with offences regarding breaches of the public trust in the execution of their duties.””If you have received one of these letters, your duty as counsel requires that you do a summary review to determine whether the conduct of the officer named in the letter may have committed misconduct and whether that misconduct would have reasonably resulted in a miscarriage of justice,” the notice said.It added that while Legal Aid “has not been funded to compensate counsel for this work,” if a lawyer “concludes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred based upon the facts of the case [Legal Aid] is of the view that this would constitute new evidence and is prepared to fund an appeal.”ABOUT THE AUTHORCaitlyn Gowriluk has been writing for CBC Manitoba since 2019. Her work has also appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, and in 2021 she was part of an award-winning team recognized by the Radio Television Digital News Association for its breaking news coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. Get in touch with her at caitlyn.gowriluk@cbc.ca.Follow Caitlyn Gowriluk on X
Winnipeg police officer faces prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges
