‘There was no need to publicly tar and feather Joseph Nassr’

Rogers ordered to pay ex-staffer $75K over arrest

Rogers Communications must pay $75,000 in damages to a former employee it asked police to arrest at his office, a Quebec judge has ruled, denouncing the company’s apparent desire to “tar and feather” him in front of 100 colleagues.

Eight years ago this week, eight Montreal police offers forcibly apprehended Joseph Nassr at his desk in what a member of Rogers’ corporate investigations team at the time described as a “show” — an ostentatious takedown officials at the communications firm sought after they caught Nassr, a customer service representative, using Kijiji to sell a smartphone they alleged he had stolen from work.

Nassr, whom Rogers subsequently fired, was acquitted in court and later sued Rogers (but not the police), arguing that the way was arrested stripped him of his dignity and caused him considerable harm. He learned Rogers, hoping to warn other employees against fraud, had intended to make an example of him when he overheard a co-worker at his new job — the former Rogers investigator who, coincidentally, had joined the same company — openly narrating the story.

The episode gave Nassr a panic attack, one of several consequences he attributes to the arrest.

In a Nov. 20 decision, Quebec Superior Court Justice Sylvain Lussier called Nassr’s arrest “illegal and abusive” and held Rogers liable for moral and punitive damages.

“While (Nassr’s) conduct may well have justified warning or disciplinary action, if confirmed, it certainly did not warrant a public display of force and humiliation worthy of a classical western movie,” Lussier wrote. “There was no need to publicly tar and feather Joseph Nassr.”

Rogers’ wish for police to arrest Nassr arose from a meeting at a Montreal restaurant on Nov. 24, 2010, at which Nassr sold a BlackBerry Torch to a private investigator the company had hired. The investigator paid Nassr $550 in cash and received the phone in a box, which he returned to Rogers.

Rogers’ corporate investigations unit, believing the phone to be company property, asked Montreal police to arrest Nassr at work to make his co-workers aware of the theft charge they were seeking. Detectives agreed, which left Rogers investigators “very excited.”

On the morning of Nov. 26, 2010, four uniformed officers and four detectives drove to Nassr’s office and handcuffed him at his desk as he ate an apple. Nassr fell on the floor as he was restrained and tumbled down the stairs as officers escorted him outside.

As police searched his condo, an intoxicated inmate urinated on Nassr in a shared cell at the police station. Nassr was released that night and went home to find his front door damaged, his sofa torn open and his dog stuck in a closet.

Rogers fired Nassr shortly after. Another company hired him within weeks, but, he later testified, the fallout of the arrest tarnished his life.

Nassr says he “went into hibernation” for two years. His relationship faltered and he was beset by intimacy and sleep problems.

In the years since Nassr’s arrest, Rogers has enacted a policy to prevent police from entering its workplaces to speak with employees.

“We regret how the situation unfolded eight years ago, as it does not reflect how we handle such matters and we took steps years ago to ensure this does not occur,” Rogers said in a statement.

In his decision, Lussier said officers should have served him with a summons rather than detaining him. He also wrote that Rogers abused its right to inform the police by requesting Nassr be arrested in a “show of force.”

Reflecting on the sale of the BlackBerry Torch that prompted Nassr’s arrest, Lussier wrote that it remains “far from clear that the phone was ‘stolen.’” Nassr said he’d advised an acquaintance who was waiting on a late delivery of a Rogers phone to order another phone and return the first one when it arrived, contending that he sold the first phone via Kijiji to cover the ensuing cancellation fee.