Man acquitted of threatening prosecutor

Ed Gellately’s voicemail was taken out of context, judge determines

A man charged with threatening a Crown prosecutor was acquitted Thursday, with the judge determining a voicemail the accused had left on the lawyer’s phone had been taken out of context.

Ed Gellately was, however, found guilty of breaching a court order to have no contact with the woman and careless storage of a firearm.

Gellately was arrested in December 2019 and charged with engaging in conduct to provoke fear in a justice system participant in order to impede her from doing her job. The court heard he had been acting on behalf of his adult son, who had previously been charged with refusing the breathalyser and resisting arrest before suffering serious injuries in a house fire that saw him spend a significant amount of time in hospital. Gellately had attempted to obtain from the Crown a copy of his son’s disclosure ahead of an early December trial date and grew irate when he was denied. He had attempted to file a request for disclosure signed by his son, but with his son’s limited ability to write due to his injuries, the Crown’s office didn’t accept that it was his signature on the form. Gellately had told a receptionist in the Crown’s office of his son’s condition, but the message wasn’t passed on.

Gellately had angrily confronted the prosecutor in court in Harbour Grace on Nov. 28 and was escorted out by police. By the time the lawyer got back to her office at the end of the day, she had a voicemail from Gellately, accusing her of committing a crime by withholding the file and saying he would be “pursuing that to the fullest extent of whatever remedies I have against your department and you personally.”

“This is out of hand, it’s totally your fault, your department’s fault, and you will be held accountable for it if I can manage it legally,” Gellately said, adding he planned to show up at court and speak to a judge. “I will be there with my double barrels and I will be going after everything I can for this injustice to my son from you, the Crown attorney’s office and the Justice department.”

On Thursday, provincial court Judge James Walsh found Gellately not guilty of trying to frighten the prosecutor and impede her from doing her job.

“I understand and appreciate that (the lawyer) focused on the words ‘double barrels,’ especially when put in the context of the accused’s loud, aggressive and angry behaviour,” Walsh said.

Reviewed in context and from Gellately’s incorrect view that the Crown’s office was committing a crime, his words were not intended to frighten but to make clear that he was going to hold “any and all people and agencies accountable,” Walsh said.

“It is patently clear to me that (the RCMP) misinterpreted the voice message and chose not to examine the message and its contents in context.”

Despite Gellately’s insistence that he had not contacted the prosecutor after he was charged and ordered not to, Walsh accepted forensic evidence indicating Gellately had emailed the Crown’s office from his own computer Dec. 15 and had asked for the message to be forwarded to the lawyer in question.

Gellately had also been charged with careless carriage and storage of a firearm, after police visited his home in response to the voicemail and witnessed him through a window carrying an unlocked .22-calibre rifle and putting it away in a laundry room without a case. Walsh found Gellately guilty of not storing the gun and ammunition correctly, but acquitted him of the other charge.

“There is no evidence before me as to how his actions were done without caution for the safety of others,” the judge said.

Walsh will sentence Gellately for the firearms offence and the court order breach at the end of August.