Six weeks ago today, The Coast published the results of my exclusive investigation of mayor Peter Kelly’s failure to properly execute the will of Mary Thibeault. (“A trust betrayed,” February 16). That article showed how, after her death, Kelly had transferred over $160,000 from Thibeault’s bank account, placing the money in the control of himself and his son.
Amidst a media firestorm after our revelations, Kelly announced he would not run for re-election, but otherwise, nothing else seems to have happened—the police refuse to investigate the matter and, as of Tuesday, there has been no change in the the Thibeault estate as related in the probate court file.
Police spokesperson Brian Palmeter told me Monday that the police won’t investigate unless they receive a complaint from “a material party.”
But, I pointed out, the police initiate investigations of lots of suspected crimes, even when the victim refuses to swear to a complaint—think domestic violence, elder financial abuse and even shootings, where for a variety of reasons the victims may not want the police involved.
“That’s a good point,” said Palmeter. “In those situations we’ll investigate if a witness comes forward.” So, I pressed, in the case of the Thibeault estate, a witness doesn’t have to be a material party? Palmeter hedged on that point, but said that, regardless, no one has come forward to file a formal complaint, whether as material party or as witness suspecting wrong-doing.
Still, I doubt we’d be parsing who has to complain if we were talking about some street kid suspected of ripping off 20 bucks. There appears to be one justice system for connected politicians, and another for everyone else.
I’m not a lawyer, much less a judge, but it seems to me there are at least enough questions about the Thibeault estate to warrant a police investigation, particularly to answer the question: Did Kelly swear to a false affidavit and then submit it to the court? I wonder why the probate court itself hasn’t called for an investigation of that point.
The Thibeault estate aside, since the article was published I’ve been contacted by dozens of people who have had their own problems with probate; one is even a relative of another local politician, who alleges that the politician has mishandled an estate. The problems, as alleged, all relate back to reasons why people might not want to, or can’t, involve the cops—probate is hard to understand, it often involves family conflict (see domestic violence above), people on the outside think it’s “personal business” and the cops have what they think are more important things to do.
These complaints prompted me to wonder if there was a way to look at probate systematically, so I contacted court administrator Peter James and told him I wanted to start drilling down into probate cases and look at thousands of them in order to better understand the problems and, perhaps, make suggestions for how to improve the probate system.
There’s a prohibitive barrier for this research, however: the court charges $2.81 for each file I request; if I pulled, say, 2,000 files, it’d cost nearly $5,000. I asked James if I could get a break on the costs, and in return I’d show up three times a week and pull 25 files at a time so as to not overburden the clerks.
James initially seemed open to the idea, but after studying the matter told me that in Nova Scotia there’s no legal way to reduce or eliminate fees for retrieving court files. By way of contrast, in the United States there are never fees charged for simply looking at a court file.
To say I am frustrated is an understatement, but never mind my journalistic concerns; the fee system also effectively bars, say, a criminology class from studying violent attacks that have entered the court system, or an academic researcher from looking at how divorce cases play out in terms of alimony payments.
The fee system in Nova Scotia courts stops any potential researcher from making a thorough examination of how the courts work and how successfully they perform. It is simply impossible to make informed critiques of the courts.
And this is a real crime.
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2012.
Too funny, just yesterday I was sitting down reading the Peter Kelly editorial in the free community paper that gets throw in my driveway. I thought “boy, its been awhile since any mention of kelly and his legal ‘troubles’ were mentioned in either the mainstream press or The Coast”. Thanks Tim, for keepin’ it in the loop!
Oh great! A story about not being able to make a story!! Give me a break.
Tim admits that he is neither a lawyer nor a judge.
Perhaps he should fess up to having piss poor math skills while he in confession mode!
His calculation of $2.81 per file times 2000 files working out to just under $5000 is off a tad!
My non-socialist calculator comes up with $5620! Was he using the same math abilities to
skewer his nemesis Peter Kelly in Tim’s probate calculations? Was he using his dollar store calculator when he calculated how much the bus drivers are “underpaid”?
Surely the Coast can afford a measly $5620 in the name of an honest, unbiased journalistic foray into Probate cases! If not, how about a sampling of 500 cases which would only cost $1405 ? Alternately, since the Coast seems to have a love-in going on with both Darrel Dexter and Megan Leslie perhaps either one would be willing to fund Tim’s excursion into
uncharted waters? Darrell could also direct the province to waive the fees for your purposes if he saw fit too!
In the interim, Tim you could print the names of Senators from Nova Scotia for Megan Leslie who publicly stated she doesn’t know a single name of a N S senator! She can be forgiven for her ignorance in this regard since she is not a local, having been born and raised in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Not unlike Tim, another come-from away, from down south who shamelessly tells us blue nosers how to run our affairs on a daily basis!
I wouldn’t harp too much about the justice system coddling politicians, Tim. How do you account for MLAs Wilson, Hurlburt, MacKinnon and Zinck, for example? What about Gerald Regan? Or what about Senator Barrow, who got nailed for influence peddling back in the early ’80’s? What about Roland Thornhill, who had to resign as deputy premier because of some shady financial dealings? What about Billy Joe MacLean, who was convicted of submitting forged documents? What about John Buchanan, who by 1990 was under investigation by the feds for corruption and escaped only by being named to the Senate? And expense-claim investigations have happened before: two MLAs were investigated by the Speaker in 1984 and one was found in breach.
There’s more eyes on these guys than there is on most folks. And there are always lots of people eager to toast some pol’s nuts. This isn’t the ’60’s or ’70’s anymore, these guys can’t get away with much.
All this harping on the executor story has made me feel something I thought I’d never feel – pity for Peter Kelly. The entire case is before the RCMP, but hey, I guess you crackerjack reporters know more than the police, eh?
Quit being a one trick pony and find a new fish to fry. Did you try showing James your secret press box decoder ring?
Halifax is a better place because of Tim Bousquet