All trickery, schemes between rich old man, mercenary woman
They are both vulpine and cunning.
Actually that should be written “vulpine” and “cunning” because the words aren’t mine. Justice Paul Perell is speaking here, via a written decision released this week which — cut to the chase, as indeed chase it is — permits a woman who can’t be identified to proceed with her legal case of alleged sexual assault against Ron Joyce, billionaire octogenarian co-founder of Tim Hortons.
Joyce has claimed, through various legal proceedings, that his accuser is (I’m paraphrasing here) a pathological liar, gold-digger and extortionist. On these allegations, there is considerable supporting evidence, most notably a previous purported shakedown to the tune of $330,000 from a former lover, her married boss, to stifle what he has said (under oath) was her threat to reveal their extramarital affair to his wife. She counters there was no extortion bid and the money was paid to call off a sexual harassment claim she’d commenced against a fellow employee. For her part, the woman — who has a habit of clandestinely taperecording many of her conversations with the cast of characters involved, yet can produce only those which boost her side of the story — has wrapped herself in the mantle of sex assault victim, a posture that she maintained during a March hearing that turned into a manifesto dissertation on The System:
Cops are corrupt. They refused to investigate her claim of being sexually molested by Joyce on May 19, 2011. Lawyers colluded, hers and his.
Her laggard filing of this lawsuit — two years later — well, there were reasons, including her preoccupation with a boyfriend who was hospitalized for a mental breakdown brought on by the surge of suppressed memories surrounding his own long-ago molestation by family members, their revival triggered by the complainant’s experience.
And the whole extended crisis has caused the complainant to get fat — lost her model-slim figure, which she also blames on Joyce. The trauma, you know.
Factoid: Three legal firms have represented the complainant during this litigious odyssey. All bailed. She’s now representing herself.
One of those lawyers, however, believed the matter had been resolved when Joyce cut his client a cheque for $50,000, cashed and deposited. That lawyer faxed Joyce’s lawyer a letter on Nov. 22, 2011: “I have been advised that our respective clients have met and settled their differences. Under the circumstances, I would propose to close my file. As I have not had the courtesy of a response from you to my earlier telephone messages or my correspondence, I anticipate that you may have closed your file as well.”
Uh-uh, the complainant insists, arguing she took the money, sure, but she’d never directed her lawyer to close the file. To her mind, the $50,000 — inscribed “PAID IN FULL” — was merely an “advance” on her (now) $7.5 million (originally $1.2 million) lawsuit, not a final settlement.
Joyce agrees he ponied up — not to be inferred as any admission of guilt but from the kindness of his heart towards a woman half a century younger with whom he’d been involved for a decade, though the sexual aspect of their relationship had ended in 2010, a full year before, she says, Joyce climbed into her guest room bed, at his house, while she was sleeping, and began masturbating her, against her will. Didn’t happen, Joyce says; he was simply trying to wake her up from a deep sleep and she punched him.
Factoid (or maybe not because it’s been disputed): Joyce claims the woman brought her suit 17 days after he declined her proposal that she marry him. She maintains he’s the one who pursued matrimony.
This is what the judge thinks about their duelling assertions:
“For the purpose of deciding this summary judgment motion, I do not need to decide the truth of the many defamatory or incriminating allegations. An enormous amount of the evidence was hearsay or inadmissible . . . An enormous amount of evidence was disputes about trivialities . . . Much of the evidence was inflammatory and designed to enrage the court or the media since both sides are intent on winning a public relations war.”
I would respectfully suggest it’s less about winning a public relations war than it is about winning — or not losing — a whole lot of money, millions and millions.
The judge concluded Joyce’s “trick was to create a hoax settlement because he knew if he pressed for a real settlement,” a piddly fifty grand would have been rejected. The complainant had career ambitions, with Joyce the financier, requiring more than $50,000 to get off the ground. Wouldn’t have done much for her alleged marriage gambit either.
“Her trick was to deceive Mr. Joyce into thinking he had settled the sexual assault claim, which would allow her to resume her business or personal courting of Mr. Joyce with the hedge of a fallback sexual assault claim.’’
All trickery and connivance between a wildly rich twice-divorced old man and a mercenary young woman.
To be clear: Perell’s ruling does nothing more than keep the suit alive. “Apart from concluding that both Mr. Joyce and Ms (X) are vulpine and cunning, for the purposes of deciding this summary judgment motion, I need not decide who was the hunter or who was the fox.’’
He made “no finding whatsoever whether the sexual assault actually occurred. None of the allegations has been proven in court.
Perell ruled on the narrow matters of whether the limitation period for the complainant’s sexual assault claim had run out before she filed and if, in fact, a contracted settlement — requiring “a meeting of the minds’’ — existed.
The legal exposition runs to 29 pages. The verdict: No and no.
This, despite the fact that, at one point, the complainant changed the date of the alleged assault in her notice of action to June 2011. “I conclude the misdating of the events was a feeble and stupid effort by Ms (X) to avoid problems about the possible passing of the limitation period for the sexual assault claim.
Perell did toss out the woman’s concomitant accusation against Joyce of slander, the details of which I will spare readers.
The judge writes: “I do not conclude that Mr. Joyce or Ms (X) were lying to the court; rather, my disbelief is based on their mutually skewered perceptions of events and because of the unreliable, irrational and emotionally distorted nature of their accounts of those events.” What a couple of swells. An appeal is expected. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.