‘A great injustice has been done to me’
Autistic man sues social worker for breach of professional conduct
Malcolm Nadeau says he doesn’t want hush money. He wants vindication.
Nadeau is suing his former social worker for $125,000 for breach of professional ethics — for loving and leaving him. Bereft of both lover and social worker, the spectre of abandonment so harsh, he found himself admitted into hospital under suicide watch several times.
Nadeau, 39, who has an autism disorder and lives on welfare in the South Shore borough of St-Hubert, says he is not interested in signing the out-of-court settlement — even though it’s for a substantial amount of money — his lawyers negotiated with the local health department. Because in return for taking the cash, he would have to drop the case and keep quiet. Forever. As if nothing happened.
“This was never about the money,” Nadeau said. “This person characterized me as unstable and violent and a rapist. I want to clear my name.”
Within days of their secret affair blowing into the open, social worker Valérie Kimmell went to the police claiming she was raped. Officers arrested Nadeau, dragging him from home in handcuffs. Those charges have since been dropped. Nadeau, however, says he still feels humiliated by the false accusations.
A freelance graphic artist/illustrator, Nadeau was 33 when he was diagnosed with Apserger’s syndrome, a high-functioning condition on the autism spectrum. He says he grew up in a violent home, suffered from bullying at school, and had few friends. Before his parents divorced, his mother fled with him and his sister to a shelter for abused women. As a teenager, he was treated for severe depression at school and at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Kimmell became Nadeau’s social worker on March 22, 2013. He was already enrolled in an autism program (Déficience intellectuelle et trouble envahissant du développement) at the CLSC Samuel-de-Champlain, part of the Montérégie Health Department (CISSS).
Initially, he met his social worker once or twice a week at the CLSC offices.
Then, these meetings shifted to Nadeau’s home, with the knowledge of the autism program supervisor, alleges the suit Nadeau’s lawyers filed in Quebec Court in September 2017.
According to the suit, Kimmell told Nadeau she felt more for him than she should for a mere client. She gave him back rubs, cards and gifts; drove him to a mall to shop, to a coffee shop to eat ice cream, to a park to hang out on a swing, and they watched the fireworks together in St-Bruno.
The suit alleges that she showed up at Nadeau’s apartment impromptu — when no meetings were scheduled — discussed leaving her partner for him, and they slept together.
These allegations have not been proven in court. However in 2014, Kimmell appeared before the disciplinary council of her profession, the Order of Social Workers and Marital and Family Therapists of Quebec, for breach of conduct. She was accused of having sex with a client.
Acting as the Order’s syndic, or prosecutor, Marcel Bonneau, found that Kimmell had broken the Order’s professional code because she got involved in a client’s personal and financial affairs, had intimate relations with a him, and implicated her husband in helping the client create a video game.
Nadeau also met Kimmell’s young children, then ages 3 and 5. They became friends on Facebook, and Kimmell introduced her children to Nadeau’s mother, the lawsuit alleges, showing a relationship developing beyond that of a professional with a client.
The relationship continued until Sept. 9, 2013. A month earlier, the suit alleges, Kimmel told Nadeau she’d like to reduce their email correspondence because she feared their relationship would be discovered. Nadeau says he sent her an email on Sept. 6 saying he felt betrayed and abandoned. The affair became public when Nadeau confided in a nurse at the St-Hubert community health department on Sept. 11. And, that same day, feeling suicidal, he was admitted to the psychiatric emergency department at Charles LeMoyne Hospital.
In mid-September, Kimmell filed “a false complaint” with the Longueuil police against Nadeau for sexual aggression, the suit alleges.
Two months later, the police arrested Nadeau at home. The charges were dropped for lack of proof.
Nadeau took his case to the health department’s ombudsman, and also filed a complaint with the Quebec order of social workers.
But the situation took its toll on him. He was hospitalized again in December, this time for four days in the psychiatric ward of Charles LeMoyne for threatening to kill himself.
Such suicidal thoughts were provoked by the false rape charges against him, the suit alleges. Nadeau was hospitalized twice in 2014 with depression and suicidal tendencies.
In several interviews with the Montreal Gazette, Nadeau said he has had a rough time accepting what happened to him. He is upset by allegations that he could be violent and a rapist.
He said he wasted years of his life trying to find help to navigate the world through his autism condition, and then he was assigned Kimmell.
Nadeau says Kimmell’s false declarations against him have hurt his chances for work. Also, there are notes in his file at the health department. Once the affair came to light, he said he found he had trouble getting services for his condition.
“I feel bad for her, but what about my reputation? No one is focusing on my problem,” he said. “I need clarity and I need closure. The legal process is giving me that opportunity.”
Lawyers in the case would not comment because the matter is before the courts.
“I’m suing for non-adequate services,” Nadeau said. “A great injustice has been done to me — and to anyone who has autism.”
Attorneys on both sides are ready to settle the case out of court for a substantial amount. The settlement is confidential. Also, if signed, it would not be considered an admission of guilt for the social worker.
So far, Nadeau says he isn’t interested.
I feel bad for her, but what about my reputation? No one is focusing on my problem. I need clarity and I need closure.