Lawsuits allege police and attorneys jointly fabricated evidence, lied to court

Two unrelated lawsuits in the United States and Canada allege that groups of police and lawyers worked together as they fabricated evidence and lied to the courts to jail a person they knew was innocent.

Although the circumstances and people involved in the two lawsuits are entirely unrelated, both plaintiffs’ allegations share similar characteristics: a group of police and lawyers fabricated false evidence, but they didn’t know about secretly-made recordings that documented the truth.

“If there is one thing that can be gleaned from the Douglas Dendinger and Donald Best civil lawsuits, it is that police officers have no monopoly over lawyers when it comes to lying to the courts.”

United States: Douglas Dendinger

Louisiana plaintiff Douglas Dendinger was arrested and charged with battery, obstruction of justice and intimidating a witness after five police officers and two prosecuting attorneys jointly provided false evidence that they saw Dendinger physically assault and intimidate a police officer as he served the officer with legal documents.

Each of the police officers and lawyers fabricated a false story, providing statements or sworn depositions that Dendinger slapped or punched officer Chad Cassard in the chest with “violence, force”, and that Cassard “flew back several feet”.

These police officers and attorneys didn’t know that Dendinger’s relatives made two hidden videos during the service of the legal documents. Those videos conclusively prove that Dendinger calmly handed the legal papers to officer Cassard, who smoothly held out his hand and accepted service in a normal manner.

The group of seven police officers and attorneys jointly lied and provided a false narrative to support charges that could have put Dendinger away for the rest of his life. Dendinger, who spent one night in jail, filed a civil lawsuit against the police and attorneys. The Washington Post reports But for the video…  WLTV reports Charges crumble after cell phone video uncovered

Canada: Donald Best

In the Best v Ranking lawsuit filed in Barrie, Ontario Canada, plaintiff Donald Best alleges that attorneys and police committed various wrongdoing, including fabricating false and deceptive evidence, lying to the court, committing a fraud upon the court by representing a phoney non-existent business entity, illegally hiring a corrupt Ontario Provincial Police officer ‘on the side’ to perform illegal acts and other misconduct.

One of Mr. Best’s allegations is that during a telephone conversation with lawyers on November 17, 2009, Best informed the lawyers multiple times that he had not received a certain court order. The lawyers even cross-examined Best about this very issue.

When the lawyers ended the telephone call with Best, they created as evidence an official ‘Statement for the Record’; falsely reporting to the judge that during the telephone call Best had told the lawyers that he had received and did possess the court order in question.  

After Best, who was in Asia at the time, discovered the lawyers’ false Statement for the Record, he wrote to the judge and the lawyers accusing the lawyers of lying to the court.

Upon receiving Best’s letters containing his version of the phone call, the lawyers told the court that they rejected Mr. Best’s version. The lawyers assured the court that their version of events was true and that Mr. Best’s version was defamatory, false, a lie.

Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking told the court:

“It goes without saying that we (Lorne Silver, Gerald Ranking and Ms. Clarke) categorically reject Mr. Best’s version of events that day.”

(December 2, 2009 official court transcript, page 41)

The judge believed the lawyers and, based on this and other false and deceptive evidence, the court found Donald Best guilty of contempt of civil court during a trial that he was unaware of. Upon returning to Canada, Best, a former Toronto police officer, spent 63 days in solitary confinement before another judge ordered him released.

According to evidence now filed with the court, the lawyers didn’t know that Best had secretly recorded the November 17, 2009 telephone call. Best’s ‘version’ of events is backed up with an accurate voice recording that proves the lawyers lied to the court; both in their ‘Statement for the Record’ and orally to the judge on the court record.

After his release from jail, Best filed a $20 million dollar civil lawsuit against the lawyers and police.

How is it possible that a group of respected and senior police officers and lawyers would jointly conspire to fabricate evidence?

It is fair to say that the public does not want to believe that a group of senior police, prosecutors and lawyers would work together to deliberately fabricate evidence and deceive the court, with the intent of putting an innocent person in jail.

The public accepts that two or three corrupt police officers might collude to present false evidence to the court, or that a lone rogue attorney might mislead the court by omission, but the idea that a mixed group of six or eight police officers and lawyers would work together to deliberately lie to the court is almost beyond belief. It shakes the very foundations of justice, so people are reluctant to accept that this could happen.

Yet, in both of the above cases the Plaintiffs possess secretly-made digital recordings and other evidence proving that groups of lawyers and police deliberately deceived the court, and worked together to do so.

Video and voice recording technologies are everywhere in today’s society. No matter what is happening, there is always a cell phone in someone’s hand, a dash camera driving by, or security camera pointing in the right direction.

Due to the public nature of police work, most of the ‘hidden camera’ incidents in the news involve police misconduct. Lawyers, however, perform most of their work in private offices and conference rooms away from the public eye, so incidents of serious misconduct by groups of lawyers are far more difficult to document and prove.

If there is one thing that can be gleaned from the Douglas Dendinger and Donald Best civil lawsuits, it is that police officers have no monopoly over lawyers when it comes to lying to the courts.

Background

As always we remind our readers that none of the allegations has yet been proven in a court of law, and to our knowledge only one of the defendants has filed a Statement of Defence. Visitors to this website are encouraged to examine the legal documents and other evidence posted here, to do independent research and to make up their own minds about the civil lawsuit known as ‘Donald Best v. Gerald Ranking et al’. (Superior Court of Justice, Central East Region: Barrie, Court File No. 14-0815)