MANDEL: Judge reprimands Crown at Stronach sex assault trial
· Toronto Sun
It’s not often that a veteran judge admits she’s “gobsmacked” – first by a witness who apologized for lying on the stand and then by a prosecutor who knew she was lying but did nothing about it.
At the judge-alone Frank Stronach sex assault trial, Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy was clearly not amused and gave Crown attorney Jelena Vlacic an uncomfortable dressing down.
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It all revolved around a seemingly innocuous question.
The fourth complainant at the trial had testified she was raped by Stronach in his waterfront condo after working at his head office as a university summer student in 1983. The Crown asked if she knew any of the other alleged victims involved in the proceeding: Stronach, the 93-year-old billionaire founder and former CEO and chair of Magna International, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges involving seven women.
The witness told Vlacic she knew a woman named Jane Boon had written an article for the Globe and Mail but she didn’t have a subscription for the Globe . The prosecutor didn’t probe further.
Boon penned an op-ed in June 2024 about being a naive co-op student at Magna when Stronach, three times her age, invited her to dinner and then insisted she accompany him to the Magna guest house because she’d had too much to drink.
According to a follow-up written by Boon last month, the novelist is suing him for more than $4 million, alleging Stronach had sex with her without her consent, while his statement of defence dismissed her accusations as an “after-the-fact attempt to leverage other allegations against Stronach.”
Under cross-examination Thursday by defence lawyer Leora Shemesh, the fourth complainant repeated that she hadn’t read anything in the media.
“Well, you’ve definitely read articles about it and I’m going to suggest to you that you read Jane Boon’s article because you’ve commented about how she remembered more facts than you,” Shemesh charged.
The witness sheepishly agreed that she had.
The next morning, the woman asked if she could address the court – she wanted to apologize for not telling the truth when initially questioned by Vlacic.
“I don’t really have anything to hide and I don’t really have anything to gain by being here. And equally, I had no reason to deny having read it,” she said of Boon’s story. “The Crown was well aware I had read it and we had spoken quite at length about the article.”
When the witness was excused following cross-examination – denying it was a consensual encounter she’s now embarrassed about – the judge turned to the Crown. Known to be tough but generally easy going, Molloy was obviously straining to keep her anger in check as she called Vlacic on the carpet.
“You knew she was not telling the truth and you did nothing. I think you need to reflect on that,” the judge said. “It’s not what I expect of the Crown when a witness is obviously lying and you take no steps to correct the record.”
When court reconvened, the emotional prosecutor said she’d spent the lunch hour “agonizing” over her failure to ask point blank if the witness had read the article but admitted she was worried the woman would lie. So she figured cross-examination would set the record straight.
That hardly satisfied her obligation as an officer of the court, Molloy said.
“If she said, ‘No I never read it,’ then you have a different ethical responsibility to the court, which you could do by excusing the witness and raising it with me, you could do it by giving Ms. Shemesh a heads up,” the judge suggested.
Instead, “a whole day went by and you said nothing.”
When the complainant started off the next morning by apologizing for lying and saying the Crown knew she had, “I tell ya, I was gobsmacked,” Molloy said.
“So were we,” Shemesh added.
It’s not the first time prosecutors have been under fire in this case. The defence has accused the Crown of tainting evidence by coaching the fourth complainant and others in their witness prep meetings.
Shemesh has said she’ll argue an abuse of process motion and seek a stay of Stronach’s charges at the end of the trial.
In the meantime, you couldn’t help but feel for the apologetic Vlacic as she had her wrist slapped and was told to do better by the presiding judge.
“You have to be above the fray,” Molloy told her. “I need to be able to rely on you to do that going forward.”
She’ll have the opportunity next week: The fifth complainant is expected to testify Monday.