In defence of an old friend
I DON’T PREJUDGE LEGAL CASES, BUT I HOPE THAT THIS CASE IS BEING HANDLED WITH SUITABLE RESPECT FOR THE ISSUES AND STAKES INVOLVED. — CONRAD BLACK
As this is my last column here before Christmas, and in 2019, I would like to make it a gift, in this case to my friend Harold Peerenboom, who did me a favour three years ago. He assisted me in residential matters when I was dealing with a pressing tax problem; I am making other arrangements now, and this is not intended to repay his favour, but is an arm’s- length gesture of solidarity with a friend of more than 50 years, who has been mired in intense legal combat in the United States, a subject of which I, too, have had some experience. Harold has had a dispute dating back to 2011 over a tennis instructor in a gated community in Palm Beach where he has a home, and whose services Harold wished to have put up for tender. The tennis instructor had her supporters in the community and the dispute escalated, as litigation has been known to do in the United States, especially between strong- minded and wealthy protagonists who are at loggerheads. As with proud nations sometimes, strong- minded people bump into each other in a small matter and the initial issue is soon dwarfed by the proportions of the hostilities that engulf and magnify the dispute.
In this case, Harold, shortly after the tennis incident, was the victim of an anonymous mailing of over 200 letters to neighbours and business connections enclosing negative press coverage and generally besmirching him and inciting the inference that he was regarded as unethical and retrograde by those who had known and worked with him. This mailing became a subject of a police investigation in Florida, and in 2012 was succeeded by a systematic anonymous mail assault of 20 mail-outs of a total of nearly 2,000 letters over 3 ½ years, accusing Harold of sexual assault against a minor, complicity in a double homicide in Hallandale, Fla., and ultimately was broadened to include smears against his wife and family. There was no truth to any of these outrageous accusations, and while those who knew him saw at once how scurrilous this campaign was, it was distressing and a major inconvenience with credulous recipients, who included scarcely acquainted people with whom he had significant commercial relations.
Never more than in legal matters is the distinction between Canada and the United States clearer: the land of Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney becomes a jungle inhabited by savage beasts. Harold guessed that his opponent in the tennis dispute, the billionaire former owner of the Marvel Corporation, Isaac Perlmutter, was the ultimate source of this campaign, and that connection has been specifically charged in civil litigation in the U. S. which is grinding its way to a court determination, despite an endless campaign of dilatory procedures and harassments. ( Perlmutter denies this, and has filed counter claims.) Both American and Canadian police and prosecutors have been involved in trying to chase down the ultimate source of these spurious allegations, which succeeded for a brief time in making Harold a tentative possible suspect in the Hallandale murders. It was an extremely malicious assault on him and his family.
In April 2017, the Palm Beach Police Department, co- operating with the U. S. Post Office and Homeland Security, concluded that the prime suspects in respect of these defamatory mailings were two Canadians, one a disgruntled employee of Harold’s executive placement company Mandrake, who had been let go for alleged financial improprieties. Though small, the Palm Beach Police Department is sophisticated and takes good care of that astronomically rich community ( the deputy chief was a non-paying tenant in my guest house there for a couple of years during his divorce proceedings, and I saw how thorough that force was). In June 2017, the ex- employee of Mandrake was arrested and charged in Toronto with criminal harassment and extortion in respect of four of the serial mailings. As the charges were laid more than six months after the offence occurred, the Crown was required to proceed by indictment, which would have necessitated what was estimated by defence counsel to be a twoweek jury trial. The crown attorney seized with the case, in the College Park courthouse, stayed the charges in August 2017.
The investigation continued and, according to someone close to the matter, a Toronto detective gleaned enough evidence to charge the former Mandrake employee and his alleged accomplice with all but one of the defamatory mailings between 2012 and 2016, and he obtained a videotaped statement and confession of guilt in eight of the mailings, from the alleged accomplice. Harold’s own investigators found what they believed to be sufficient evidence to connect the two alleged hate- mailers to Perlmutter, and that is under contention in civil court in the United States, where both sides are represented by prominent and expensive counsel. Innocence must be presumed, but the coincidences are remarkable, and the civil standard of proof is only on the balance of probabilities (not proof beyond a reasonable doubt). But that connection awaits adjudication in the tenebrous thickets of the American court system. The Toronto prosecution of the two accused hate- mailers was scheduled for court on Nov. 14, but on Nov. 12, the crown advised counsel he would not proceed and on Nov. 14 he withdrew the charges, claiming both that “There was no reasonable prospect of conviction,” and that it was “not in the public’s interest to proceed.”
The latter assertion could be sustainable for the same reason the much more circumscribed and less well documented case was stayed against the single defendant in 2017 — that it would clog courts better used for two weeks with more serious offences and stronger evidence.
But the first explanation is untrue: I am assured that the Crown has a videotaped confession from one of the accused, although it is unclear whether the senior crown was aware of that evidence when he pulled the charges. Furthermore, the distinct possibility that Perlmutter bankrolled the whole smear campaign gives this case a much more serious potential scope and it should not simply be scheduled for court and then stayed arbitrarily and with cavalier parochialism without regard to its much wider implications.
The American Peerenboom- Perlmutter litigation, now involving many hundreds of millions of dollars, would be well- served and perhaps decisively influenced by getting to the bottom of this. It may be congestive injustice to shut down this issue at this point. Andrew Locke, director of Crown Operations, the chief law officer in the jurisdiction, says there has been a suitable inquiry into the manner in which this case has been disposed of, but if these charges were withdrawn with wilful refusal to take account of important evidence, this is a very alarming indication of incompetence.
The precise question of whether this is a justifiable decision or a flippant and petulant short- circuiting of a case that ramifies internationally into huge damages should be determined by the Attorney General of Ontario and his most senior officials, after careful examination of all relevant facts.
I don’t prejudge legal cases, but I hope that this case is being handled with suitable respect for the issues and stakes involved. Harold Peerenboom is striking a blow for all Canadians who have been victims of the frequently evil American justice system. There are many of us, and he deserves a fair hearing.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers.
Never more than in legal matters is the distinction between Canada and the United States clearer.