CBC News Interracial Sex Scandal: Black Man Says White Female Manitoba Judge & Her Husband Sexual Harassed Him!
Manitoba judge in scandal steps aside
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 | 9:56 PM CST
CBC News
Lori Douglas was appointed a judge in 2005. (CBC)A Manitoba family court judge involved in a scandal over nude photos of her that appeared online has requested to be temporarily relieved of her duties as a sitting justice of Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench.
Queen’s Bench Justice Marc Monnin said Wednesday that Lori Douglas, an associate chief justice, will “remain in her position in an administrative capacity” as the Canadian Judicial Council investigates a complaint against her.
Douglas requested to be relieved “in the interests of the judiciary and of the court,” Monnin said in an emailed statement.
Winnipegger Alexander Chapman, 44, made a complaint to the judicial council in July.
‘The test for removal is whether or not a judge has the confidence of the public to discharge the duties of their office.’—Normand Sabourin, Canadian Judicial Council
Chapman alleges that Douglas’s husband, Winnipeg lawyer Jack King, 64, harassed him in 2003 by pressing him to have sex with Douglas, who was also a lawyer at the time.
Douglas was appointed a judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench (family division) on May 19, 2005. She was appointed as an Associate Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench (family division) on May 14, 2009, which mean she also became a member of the Canadian Judicial Council, an agency that sets policies for the federal judicial system.
Douglas has declined to comment, saying it’s a private matter.
The executive director of the judicial council said Wednesday it would take about three months to complete an investigation into Chapman’s allegations.
The complaint will be investigated by a chief justice from outside Manitoba, Sabourin said, but if it’s deemed serious enough, it could be heard at a public inquiry.
“The inquiry would hear witnesses, review all the scope of the allegations against the judge and would determine if it’s a matter that warrants a judge’s removal,” said Normand Sabourin.
“The test for removal is whether or not a judge has the confidence of the public to discharge the duties of their office … so that is the ultimate test,” he said.
A federally appointed judge can only be removed upon order of Parliament.
Complainant seeks $67M
Chapman has made a separate complaint to the Manitoba Law Society about King’s alleged conduct.
Alexander Chapman has launched three lawsuits seeking $67 million in damages. (CBC)On Wednesday, Chapman filed separate lawsuits against King for $10 million and against Douglas for $7 million. He is also suing the law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, where the couple used to work, for $50 million.
He told CBC News on Wednesday that he couldn’t live with what he says happened any longer.
“I’m standing here at the courthouse and I’m very nervous … I’ve been like this for seven years,” he said.
“I just want people to know that this happened to me and it was real for me.”
He said he was relieved to have his story out in the open.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/09/01/man-judge-steps-aside.html#ixzz0yHgOI0w0
Toronto Star Article: White Manitoba Judge Performed Oral Sex Wearing Chains, Bondage, Accused Of Sexual Harassment!
Nude photos raise questions about private lives of judges
Judge Lori Douglas will work in an administrative capacity until a complaint to the judicial council is resolved.
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Allegations that nude photographs of a senior Manitoba judge in bondage, chains and performing oral sex were posted on an Internet porn site have kindled debate about how much of a judge’s private life is private.
The Canadian Judicial Council’s Ethical Principles for Judges — which judges are encouraged but not required to follow — say they should strive to conduct themselves with integrity and avoid conduct that would diminish public respect for the judiciary.
Can someone who poses naked with a whip be considered a person of integrity, or does the question open the door to inappropriate moral judgments about an individual’s personal life?
“Do we imagine that judges never disrobe or that judges never have sex lives? Of course they do,” said Bruce Ryder, an Osgoode Hall Law School professor who teaches in the area of judicial independence and ethics.
Ryder worries that “prurience” and “moral prudery” will drive the debate over whether Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba should be removed from office.
Manitoba Chief Justice Marc Monnin announced Wednesday that Douglas, of the court’s family division, has asked to be “temporarily relieved of her duties as a sitting judge” and will work in an administrative capacity until a complaint to the judicial council is resolved.
Less than 24 hours earlier, the CBC had reported that sexually explicit photographs of Douglas are part of the complaint made in July by Alexander Chapman, a 44-year-old computer specialist, who says he was harassed by the judge’s husband to have sex with her.
Chapman said after he retained Winnipeg family lawyer Jack King in 2003 to handle his divorce, King showed him about 30 nude photographs of Douglas and supplied him with a password for a porn website devoted to interracial sex.
Posted on a section of the website entitled “Our White Princesses” were naked photos of Douglas, then a lawyer at King’s firm, Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, Chapman said.
The CBC said it has seen an ad from a website known as “Darkcavern” that featured nude photos of Douglas and sought a “smooth black male or Mexican” to join her and King for “multi-partner” sex in Cancun in 2002.
King said he was depressed over the deaths of his best friend and his brother at the time, and Douglas did not know he had posted the photographs
Chapman accepted a $25,000 settlement from the lawyer in July 2003 that required Chapman to delete photographs of Douglas from his personal computer.
“He lied about that,” Bill Gange, King’s lawyer, told the Star, adding the pictures were removed from the Internet prior to the 2003 settlement.
Douglas was appointed a judge in 2005 and promoted to associate chief justice last year.
The conduct of judges prior to appointment can “absolutely” have a bearing on their fitness to remain in office, said Norman Sabourin, the judicial council’s executive director.
The Supreme Court of Canada made that clear in 2001 in upholding a decision to remove Justice Richard Therrien from the Court of Quebec.
Therrien failed to disclose he had been convicted 25 years earlier of helping hide four FLQ members involved in kidnapping and murdering cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.
The court said the public demands “virtually irreproachable conduct from anyone performing a judicial function.” But questions persist about where to draw the line.
Should a judge be kicked off the bench for adultery? What about a woman who pays her way through law school by pole dancing? Is she disqualified from being a judge?
If a lawyer deliberately posts nude photos of herself on Facebook or on a website it could later undermine public confidence in her ability to serve as a judge, said Lorne Sossin, dean of law at Osgoode.
However, if the photos were taken in the context of an inherently private relationship and posted without her consent, Sossin said, it’s hard to imagine she should be judged negatively.
Sossin suggested it would also be unfair to find Douglas unfit for judicial office simply on the basis of her sexual predilections. At an earlier time, the same might have been said about homosexuals, he added.
Adam Dodek, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, who writes on legal ethics, said turning judicial appointments advisory committees into morality police probably isn’t where the country wants to go.
“If she (Douglas) wasn’t aware of photos being posted on the Internet and she wasn’t involved in this plan to try to seduce her husband’s client, then what you’re really left with is somebody who is engaged in, let’s say ‘sexually graphic’ actions that some people might find offensive,” Dodek said Wednesday.
That said, Dodek believes the advisory committees, which recommend candidates for judicial office, are lagging behind human resources specialists who routinely check social networking sites and the Internet in vetting job applicants.
Ryder, of Osgoode, believes if a judge isn’t involved in anything illegal or something that could give rise to a conflict of interest — such as a citizens’ crusade against city hall — their private lives should not be up for discussion.
“We really have to start by asking ourselves, what exactly has Justice Douglas done wrong?
“Based on what we know so far,” said Ryder, “maybe she deserves our sympathy more than our condemnation, because it seems she has been the victim of an egregious invasion of privacy.”
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