He has defended some notorious criminals in Canadian history, including Paul Bernardo, Pat and Angelo Musitano, Min Chen,[2] Paul Volpe, Johnny Papalia, Carmen Barillaro and Pietro Scarcella.
[3] John Rosen's grandparents immigrated to Toronto from Poland in the early 1900s.
He is the eldest of six children, whom his father supported with his Bay Street dry-cleaning shop, Imperial Cleaners, across from the Toronto Coach Terminal.
At age 16, Rosen began driving the dry-cleaning delivery truck after school.
[7] Rosen successfully defended a man charged with second degree murder, where the prosecution withdrew the charge on the eve of trial following John's appearance in the Supreme Court of Canada in the related case of Benson v. Brown,[8] which set the ground rules for allowing access to lawyer/client confidential information regarding another suspect previously cleared by the police.