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Ethics. Privacy. Access to Justice. Misconduct by Lawyers, Police and Judges
Lawyer and police misconduct in Donald Best case “reads like a John Grisham novel”
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Perjury. Violence. Abduction. Threats to rape and murder witnesses. Anonymous internet threats from a Bay Street law firm. A Canadian judge’s secret backroom order.
Best vs. Ranking is just another civil lawsuit in Ontario Superior Court…
by Donald Best
A judge once remarked on the record that my case reads like the plot from a John Grisham novel.
I can’t disagree. I wonder what Mr. Grisham himself might think. (Grisham photo above courtesy of the Toronto Star)
Like most Grisham novels the stakes in my case are high enough at US$120 million dollars to cause some lawyers, accountants, police officers and other professionals to step over the line.
Way over the line.
“My case is complex, but my April 23, 2015 sworn affidavit provides a basic summary and is, frankly, a pretty good page-turner at bedtime.”
Download Donald Best’s April 23, 2015 affidavit. (PDF 882kb without exhibits)
My case has seen some people on the other side (including certain lawyers and police officers) proveably commit various crimes including: fabricating evidence, lying to the court [1], fraudulently using a phoney non-existent ‘company’ as a lawyer’s client to petition the courts and transfer a million dollars [2], illegally hiring a corrupt OPP police sergeant ‘on the side’ to work against me in a civil lawsuit [3] and putting an innocent man in jail using proveably false, fabricated evidence. [4]
Welcome to civil litigation involving the Caribbean island nation of Barbados.
Also like a John Grisham novel, my witnesses, lawyers, myself and our family members have been the targets of a long-running campaign of violence, harassment and threats designed to deter us from seeking justice before the courts.
In the Greater Toronto Area, I was assaulted in the street. Also in the GTA, a man with a Caribbean accent approached and threatened one of my children over this case. My family’s auto was shot up. While my former lawyer was out of Canada litigating my case, his wife and family received an intimidating anonymous phone call from a person with a Barbados accent. My lawyer’s wife gathered up her children and fled their Orillia, Ontario home in terror; exactly as was intended by the caller.
One of my witnesses was abducted and beaten at gunpoint by a person connected with the other side in Barbados. One of my witnesses was threatened with job loss if he testified, and was fired from the University of the West Indies after he testified anyway.
Illegally and behind my back, an Ontario judge secretly substituted a changed court order in a backroom meeting; off the court record and without notifying me even though I was a self-represented litigant. This kind of judicial ‘Star Chamber’ activity regularly happens in Iran or Russia, but surely not in Canada; except when it does. [5]
The danger of court actions involving Barbados nationals and corporations
They do things differently in Barbados; to the point where one of their high court judges publicly complained of a culture where court witnesses are routinely intimidated and even harmed. [6] Other Canadians have experienced and documented the Barbados litigation culture of intimidation and violence against witnesses and litigants. [7]
There have also been documented incidents where private interests hired corrupt Barbados police officers to act as strongarm debt collectors or to carry out police investigations designed to assist one side of a civil legal dispute. In the past, Barbados police officers have travelled to Canada as ‘tourists’ where they lied to enter the country, illegally threatened civil litigants and foolishly arrived at a Canadian bank demanding private information without a search warrant. (Apparently that is the way things are done by the police in Barbados, but it didn’t work out too well for them in Canada.) [8]
Former OPP Detective Jim Van Allen (public domain photo)
Little did I know that my opponents from Barbados would have their Canadian lawyers illegally hire a corrupt Ontario Provincial Police detective sergeant ‘on the side’ to illegally perform investigations against me to assist in their civil court case. [9] Other Canadian police personnel in Durham and Peel Regions also became improperly involved in assisting the other side in their civil lawsuit costs hearing against me in the Ontario Superior Court. [10]
Canadian law firms adopt Barbadian intimidation tactics
They play rough in Barbados and some of the involved Canadian lawyers seem to have adopted the Barbadian way of litigation. Sworn forensic evidence filed with the Ontario courts proves that personnel from the Toronto law office of Miller Thomson LLP sent anonymous threats to my witnesses via the internet. (The Miller Thomson personnel didn’t realize that their law firm has an assigned IP number that led investigators right back to their office.) [11]
My witnesses received hundreds of anonymous online threats, including threats of murder, rape and arson. Anonymous threats to shoot me, my witnesses and former lawyer remain published on the internet.
The other side is fighting tooth and nail to prevent a jury of my fellow Canadians from considering my evidence. The other side is also fighting to prevent a Canadian judge from issuing an injunction against the internet threats and reckless distribution of identity information – much of which is proven to have originated from several Bay Street law firms as named and described in my Statement of Claim. [12]
The story is complex and has played out in the Ontario courts over the past eight years, but my April 23, 2015 sworn affidavit is a good place to start.
Is the plot worthy of a John Grisham page-turner?
At least one Ontario judge has said so on the record.
Donald Best
DonaldBest.CA reminds our readers that as of the publication date the allegations have yet to be proven in a court of law. Visitors are encouraged to examine the legal documents and other evidence posted here, to do independent research and to make up their own minds about the civil lawsuit known as ‘Donald Best v. Gerald Ranking et al’. (Superior Court of Justice, Central East Region: Barrie, Court File No. 14-0815)
If any person disagrees with anything I’ve published in this article or elsewhere, or wishes to provide a public response or comment, please contact me at info@donaldbest.ca and I will publish your writing here with equal prominence.
