Defamation trial plaintiff and lawyer trade ‘barbs’
Can a “rat” be defamed? A Leamington realtor suing a greenhouse operator for defamation was in the hot seat himself in court Thursday as the accused’s lawyer spent hours grilling him on his own actions allegedly impugning the reputation of others. “You complain to police so much that you consider yourself a rat?” asked defence lawyer Myron Shulgan, using a derogatory term for an informant. When Robert Tatomir replied no, Shulgan showed the court an email Tatomir had sent a police officer in 2008 in which he used that term to describe himself. The email in question, said Tatomir, was in reference to a tip he shared with police, supplying the name of an alleged drug dealer based on “reliable and repeated word on the street.”
“I said, ‘I hate being a rat, but drugs are far too dangerous to be fooled with,’ ” Tatomir said of what he wrote at the time. “The drug problem in Leamington is off the charts,” he added.
After his cross-examination began Wednesday, Tatomir spent nearly a full day again on the stand Thursday in a jury trial before Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe. Nick Mastronardi, who founded Double Diamond Farms in Kingsville, admits he authored an uncomplimentary email that was widely circulated in 2010 and which Tatomir said torpedoed his municipal election council bid, hurt his business and irreparably damaged his reputation. Salacious details of that email were again the focus of Thursday ’s trial proceedings. “Absolutely not true,” Tatomir replied when Shulgan asked at one point about “the rumour your wife caught you in bed with your babysitter.” Mastronardi’s letter also alleged Tatomir threatens and harasses people in his business dealings and implied he was a pedophile and sold “steroid-like” products to young people. It also made references to the murder of his first wife and asked whether “you abuse women.” Tatomir agreed he’d once been arrested for “pushing an elderly lady” but that an assault charge was eventually withdrawn. As Shulgan picked away at the allegations and rumours contained in Mastronardi’s email, Tatomir said that, “read in its entirety, anyone with any brain would realize what he’s trying to do here ... it’s the worst letter that anyone could received.”
Tatomir alleges the email was in response to his political platform that included ending the town’s preferential treatment for greenhouses. Shulgan said it was in response to accusations of municipal water theft made by Tatomir against Mastronardi’s sons. Tatomir said he never made such an accusation. There was a lengthy courtroom back-and-forth between Shulgan and Tatomir over the latter’s attempts to get police to investigate other alleged thefts of municipal water by greenhouse operators following a 2010 Windsor Star story about a large-scale water theft at a Kingsville greenhouse operation that led to police charges.
Tatomir said he told a police investigator he didn’t have any specific proof of such thefts, but “I said you might want to start with greenhouse growers with big houses and big boats at the marina.” Shulgan accused Tatomir of making a “serious accusation” to police in that case. He cited another case involving a gym owner in Leamington who happened to have a competing business to one for which Tatomir was a silent partner. Tatomir said he’d been informed that that gym operator had “stolen” equipment, but Shulgan said that individual was never charged. Shulgan said his questioning went to the credibility and reputation of the plaintiff.
Shulgan tried to compare Tatomir’s informing police of alleged wrongdoings to Mastronardi’s “relating rumours he’d heard of you.” Tatomir responded that going to police when hearing of possible illegal activities is a citizen’s duty, while sharing an email the way Mastronardi is alleged to have done was something “I would never, ever have done.”
“To go to the police — that’s why we pay taxes,” said Tatomir, owner of Future Homes.
Several times, the six-member jury was dismissed as the two sides argued legal points, and Tatomir and Shulgan were periodically admonished by the judge. “Throwing barbs at each other is not helping the jury,” Munroe said at one point.
Taking the stand briefly, Tatomir’s wife Kattie said she was “disgusted” by Mastronardi’s email. Her testimony was interrupted as tears flowed: “It’s just so upsetting because none of it is true.”
The trial, scheduled for two weeks, continues Monday.