The result was a tsunami of votes that James (Jim) Arthur Van Allen (twitter @JimVanAllen1 ) should either resign from the Order voluntarily or that the Governor General should terminate his award.
Of the 258 participants, 96 voted to allow Van Allen to resign, while 161 voted that the Governor General should not wait for his resignation. Only 1 person voted that Van Allan should be allowed to remain a Member of the Order.
The now retired Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant was invested into the Order by Governor General Michaëlle Jean on May 26, 2010.
What the then Governor General of Canada did not know was that during the nomination and selection period over the Fall and Winter of 2009-2010, Van Allen was illegally working ‘on the side’ as an unlicensed private investigator for the Toronto law office of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP.
Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking (left) illegally hired OPP Sergeant Jim Van Allen to perform an illegal investigation to benefit Ranking’s clients. Section 120 (1)(a)(i) & (ii) of the Criminal Code calls that ‘Bribery of a Peace Officer’
Van Allen broke several provincial and federal laws including the Police Services Act, the Ontario Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005, S.0. 2005, c. 34, and the Criminal Code, Section 120 (Bribery of Officers) and/or Section 122 (Breach of Trust). Read more
Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking (left) illegally hired OPP Sergeant Jim Van Allen to perform an illegal investigation to benefit Ranking’s clients. The Criminal Code calls that ‘Bribery of a Peace Officer’
What Canada’s Governor General wasn’t told.
NOTICE: Poll closed after 24 hours. Analysis tomorrow!
by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police
On May 26, 2010, Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant James ‘Jim’ Arthur Van Allen stood proudly as Governor General Michaëlle Jean invested him as a Member of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces.
What neither the Governor General nor her nominating committee knew though, was that during the selection period Detective Sergeant Van Allen actively violated Provincial and Federal laws. He illegally took money ‘on the side’ to work as an unlicensed private investigator for one of Canada’s largest law firms.
We now know that in 2009 and 2010 Van Allen was a Detective Sergeant in charge of the elite Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Criminal Profiling Unit when lawyer Gerald Ranking of Fasken, Martineau DuMoulin LLP illegally paid him $2,699.93 to illegally investigate me and provide the results for use in a civil dispute.
Evidence of Van Allen’s corrupt actions is public
The evidence is filed in Ontario courts. You can download the court documents via the links at the end of this article and make up your own mind. You can examine Van Allen’s invoices and read his deceptive sworn affidavit where Van Allen and the lawyers deliberately conceal his law breaking from the courts.
You can even listen to a secretly made telephone recording of Van Allen that, with the other evidence, proves Van Allen and his fellow senior OPP officers lied and concealed his law breaking.
Should Jim Van Allen do the honourable thing? (A 24 hour poll)
Only one police officer in history has been stripped of the Order of Merit. In 2010 the Governor General ousted RCMP Sergeant Warren S. Gherasim after the officer crashed his private auto while drinking and driving.
The rules of The Order state that members can resign voluntarily in writing. Termination is automatic when a person has been convicted of a criminal offense or has been subject to official / formal / serious sanction by the police service.
The Governor General can also terminate a person’s membership as His Excellency sees fit.
To my knowledge, Governor General David Johnston does not yet know about Jim Van Allen’s law breaking during the time when the officer was invested in the Order.
Now that everything is known, should Jim Van Allen resign from the Order of Merit of the Police Forces?
Fasken Martineau lawyer Gerald Ranking (left) illegally hired OPP Sergeant Jim Van Allen to perform an illegal investigation to benefit Ranking’s clients. Section 120 (1)(a)(i) & (ii) of the Criminal Code calls that ‘Bribery of a Peace Officer’
Alabama: Yet another case of corrupt police and corrupt lawyers working together.
by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Detective, Toronto Police
Leaked documents reveal that for over ten years a group of corrupt Dothan, Alabama police officers (including the current Chief of Police) planted drugs and weapons on hundreds of innocent young black men.
Collusion between corrupt police and corrupt lawyers is a worrisome issue in the justice system simply because we are beginning to see increasing reports of this type. The news from Dothan, Alabama is only the latest story.
As I reported last March, 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. Luckily for Mr. Dendinger that (as in my case) he had a hidden recording proving that the police and attorneys perjured themselves and lied to the court.
Canadians rely upon the legal profession to monitor the police, make rogue officers accountable and to act as a deterent. When corrupt lawyers work hand in hand with corrupt police officers, and the Law Society of Upper Canada covers up and whitewashes, how can ordinary citizens hope for justice?
Perjury. Violence. Abduction. Threats to rape and murder witnesses. Anonymous internet threats from a Bay Street law firm. A Canadian judge’s secret backroom order.
Best vs. Ranking is just another civil lawsuit in Ontario Superior Court…
by Donald Best
A judge once remarked on the record that my case reads like the plot from a John Grisham novel.
I can’t disagree. I wonder what Mr. Grisham himself might think. (Grisham photo above courtesy of the Toronto Star)
Like most Grisham novels the stakes in my case are high enough at US$120 million dollars to cause some lawyers, accountants, police officers and other professionals to step over the line.
Way over the line.
“My case is complex, but my April 23, 2015 sworn affidavit provides a basic summary and is, frankly, a pretty good page-turner at bedtime.”
My case has seen some people on the other side (including certain lawyers and police officers) proveably commit various crimes including: fabricating evidence, lying to the court [1], fraudulently using a phoney non-existent ‘company’ as a lawyer’s client to petition the courts and transfer a million dollars [2], illegally hiring a corrupt OPP police sergeant ‘on the side’ to work against me in a civil lawsuit [3] and putting an innocent man in jail using proveably false, fabricated evidence. [4]
Welcome to civil litigation involving the Caribbean island nation of Barbados.
Also like a John Grisham novel, my witnesses, lawyers, myself and our family members have been the targets of a long-running campaign of violence, harassment and threats designed to deter us from seeking justice before the courts.
In the Greater Toronto Area, I was assaulted in the street. Also in the GTA, a man with a Caribbean accent approached and threatened one of my children over this case. My family’s auto was shot up. While my former lawyer was out of Canada litigating my case, his wife and family received an intimidating anonymous phone call from a person with a Barbados accent. My lawyer’s wife gathered up her children and fled their Orillia, Ontario home in terror; exactly as was intended by the caller.
One of my witnesses was abducted and beaten at gunpoint by a person connected with the other side in Barbados. One of my witnesses was threatened with job loss if he testified, and was fired from the University of the West Indies after he testified anyway.
Illegally and behind my back, an Ontario judge secretly substituted a changed court order in a backroom meeting; off the court record and without notifying me even though I was a self-represented litigant. This kind of judicial ‘Star Chamber’ activity regularly happens in Iran or Russia, but surely not in Canada; except when it does. [5] Read more
When Sebastien Kwidzinski arrived for work on the morning of November 17, 2009 he had no idea that by the end of the day circumstances would require him to make an ethical and legal decision; either reveal that he witnessed senior lawyers fabricating evidence and lying on the court record, or keep silent and become part of a group of Bay Street lawyers deceiving a judge with false evidence and lies.
What was a young articling student to do?
Think of the pressure to follow the lead of a senior partner who bragged of earning over a million dollars income a year. Tell the truth and you’re out; never to have a chance at a coveted Bay Street partnership. Keep the code of silence, support the team and you’re assured of achieving everything a young law student could want; an opportunity to be part of one of the most powerful legal cabals in Canada.
In Fall of 2009 Sebastien Kwidzinski was a 26-year-old fresh-faced kid working for Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP senior partner Gerald Ranking. Kwidzinski had always done well academically, graduating in 2002 at the top of his class from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario. Recounting how York University sent a team to his home with a scholarship offer, Kwidzinski told the Toronto Star in 2006 that he “followed the money” and went into the law program at York U.
While at university Sebastien Kwidzinski was active in various student associations and in 2008 took a summer job with Faskens, where he was seconded to the Ontario Securities Commission. At 25 years old he was on his way to a law career with one of Canada’s largest and most respected legal firms.
As Kwidzinski excitedly headed off to his first day of work to “follow the money” with Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, I wonder if he had ever read the words published by now Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals, Robert A Katzmann:
“As large firms have grown and multiplied, despondency about the decline of law practice from its virtuous and collegial past has intensified. Within the legal profession itself, many share the sense that law has freshly descended from a noble profession infused with civic virtue to a commercial pursuit. In the most erudite and theoretically sophisticated account of decline, the dean of the Yale Law School counsels idealistic young lawyers to stay clear of large firms, because they have a “harshly economizing spirit” and “increasingly commercial culture”.
But then came an incident that the Toronto Police later characterized as a youthful “stupid stunt”. On November 8, 2008 Sebastien Kwidzinski, age 25, was arrested along with two other York students and charged with false message, common nuisance and mischief interfering with property after a brown paper bag reading “I AM A BOMB” was left on a bus parked at York University. This happened two days into a strike by professors and teaching assistants of CUPE 3903. Thousands of people were evacuated from the area before the bomb squad declared the ‘bomb’ to be a hoax. Read more
In the Duffy case, the RCMP and Crown prosecutor committed a criminal offence under section 402.2(2)
A cynic might say that the corruption trial of suspended Senator Mike Duffy has produced no surprises, but that does not do justice to most ordinary Canadians who, despite all the standard jokes about politicians, expect and demand that laws, rules and standards should apply equally to all; including to those in positions of power and authority such as police, lawyers and Crown prosecutors.
As Ezra Levant points out in the above video, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Crown prosecutors released to the public, an unredacted version of Senator Duffy’s personal diary; including intimate communications with his wife, personal medical details and some of Senator Duffy’s Identity Information (as defined in the Criminal Code), including his email password.
Notwithstanding how disgusting it is that Canada’s national police agency and Crown prosecutors should have engaged in an act that is so obviously designed to embarrass and punish Mr. Duffy and his close family members, the release of Mr. Duffy’s email password is a criminal act, specifically prohibited by law in Canada. The fact that the reckless distribution happened in court documents is no excuse in law. Some would say the abuse of the court process makes the act even more reprehensible.
Best v Ranking civil lawsuit alleges prosecuting lawyers recklessly distributed to the public tens of thousands of documents containing Identity Information
As terrible as the actions of the police and the Crown are in the Duffy case, the amount of Identity Information illegally distributed pales in comparison with another case currently before the Ontario Superior Court.
In the Donald Best vs Gerald Ranking civil case, the plaintiff Donald Best alleges that defendants Gerald Ranking, Paul Schabas, Lorne Silver and others deliberately released and recklessly distributed to the public tens of thousands of unredacted privileged legal documents containing vast amounts of Identity Information and other personal and confidential information for Mr. Best, his family members and dozens of other persons who had nothing to do with the case before the courts.
In his March 31, 2015 affidavit asking the court to issue an injunction against the defendants, Mr. Best alleges:
“The defendants previously placed into the public domain, and recklessly distributed, tens of thousands of documents containing Identity Information and other private, confidential information for me, my family members and my company’s witnesses; and also for dozens and dozens of persons and entities who have nothing to do with me or my case.
As just one egregious example of thousands, defendants unlawfully took from the Orillia, Ontario law office of my company’s lawyers, the medical file of my lawyer’s dying mother, including end-of-life ‘do not resuscitate’ instructions to medical staff. The defendants and their ‘John Doe’ co-conspirators recklessly distributed this to members of the public, published it on the internet, and then filed it as ‘evidence’ with the court without notifying the judge. The defendants and their co-conspirators are still recklessly distributing this medical file in 2015. The defendants refuse to stop.”
“Certain defendants illegally employed and illegally paid a serving Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant ‘on the side’ for illegal private investigations of the Plaintiff and for illegal access to police personnel, records and resources, and for the exercise of police powers and authorities outside of normal systems, procedures and jurisdictions, to benefit defendants in a civil lawsuit…”
Recently filed legal documents in the Ontario civil case Donald Best v Gerald Ranking ask the court to put a stop to the continued reckless distribution of Identity Information for the plaintiff Donald Best, his witnesses, their family members and other victims.
Best is also asking the judge to make the defendants, including police and lawyers, account for their past reckless distribution to the public of Identity Information and other private and confidential information. The Notice of Motion claims that some defendants maliciously placed this private information into the public domain through Euclid Herbert’s ‘Barbados Underground‘ website and by other means of distribution.
The full Notice of Motion including Donald Best’s March 31, 2015 affidavit with exhibits can be downloaded in .pdf form here: (March 31, 2015 Injunction Motion, 17mb)
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. Read more
(Above: ISN CEO Ron Wretham interviewed by CBC’s Peter Mansbridge about the mystery tunnel recently discovered near the York University campus and the Rexall Centre; a tennis venue for Toronto’s 2015 Pan Am Games.)
Investigative Solutions Network Inc. is the first defendant to file a statement of defence in the Best vs Ranking et al lawsuit currently before Ontario Superior Court in Barrie, Ontario.
The February 12, 2015 statement of defence says in part:
“The defendant ISN is an Ontario corporation based in Pickering that is a full-service private investigations and training organization. The company provides investigative, security, training and screening services. The operating mind of ISN is Ron Wretham (“Wretham”).
In the Statement of Claim, the Plaintiff has lumped the defendant ISN into a group of defendants referred to as the “Van Allen Defendants.” At the time of the matters at issue in this action, the defendant Jim Van Allen (“Van Allen”) was employed as an Ontario Provincial Police officer. Van Allen has subsequently retired from the OPP. Van Allen is now a consultant to ISN in the capacity of an executive trainer and as a threat and risk assessment analyst.
At some time in the latter part of 2009, the defendant Van Allen, while an OPP officer, contacted Wretham of the defendant ISN to inquire if he knew the address of the Plaintiff. Van Allen was not a consultant to ISN at the time. Van Allen was familiar with Wretham as Wretham was a retired Toronto Police officer. Van Allen was aware that the Plaintiff was a former Toronto Police officer. Wretham did not know the address of the Plaintiff, so he referred Van Allen to the defendant Toronto Police Association (“TPA”). As a former member of the TPA, Wretham believed that the TPA kept address information on its former members including the Plaintiff.”
