Editor denies making threats

Final arguments in case involving consultants Warren and Lisa Kinsella

The man accused of uttering a threat against Warren and Lisa Kinsella denied in court Tuesday that the words he used in a 2017 article were intended to intimidate or threaten the political consultants.

“The alleged threat is not worded as a threat, there is no call to action,” James Sears said during his closing arguments.

“It did not read … ‘wouldn’t it be great if someone bludgeoned the Kinsellas to death,’ ” he stated, adding “we’re dealing with a dispute over semantics.” Sears is representing himself, but a court-appointed lawyer handled last week’s cross examination of the couple.

The article was published in Your Ward News, a controversial Toronto newsletter edited and featuring columns by Sears under various aliases.

In it, Sears wrote that there was a “chance that some hothead who cares deeply about me and my family would lose it and do something illegal and bludgeon the Kinsellas to death.” Crown attorney Matthew Giovinazzo, during his final submissions Tuesday, said Sears had reason to threaten the Kinsellas at the time he wrote that passage.

He blamed them for the Children Aid’s Society launching an investigation into his family — which was dropped — and the couple was also behind a successful campaign to stop Canada Post from delivering what the Kinsellas have called a “neo-Nazi” rag.

At first, Sears appeared amused by the attention, but over time, the “tone” shifted and the Kinsellas were increasingly vilified in Your Ward News where they were described as psychopaths who had to be stopped, Giovinazzo told Ontario Court Justice Dan Moore.

While there clearly were escalating tensions between Your Ward News and the Kinsellas, “one cannot threaten someone else when one is having an argument,” Giovinazzo said.

He added if the words don’t directly say the Kinsellas should be bludgeoned to death, that’s the “latent interpretation” when taken in the context of the ongoing dispute.

But Sears insisted that’s not the case.

“There’s no history of us speaking in code. It’s pretty direct, and … I’ll grant distasteful maybe at times, but we do not speak in code. There’s no history of violent calls to action anywhere in the paper.”

Sears added he can’t be responsible if the Kinsellas “misinterpreted” his words.