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Martensville
(05)
Sold out and talked into
lovin' it
Ron Sterling took calls on John
Gormley (CKOM Talk radio) November 18, 2004
Receiving slightly more
than a car and a pizza (Ron and Linda will have just enough money
to buy a house and a taxi) Ron and Linda Sterling are not complaining
that their lawyer, Geoff Dufour could buy many cars and many
taxis. His last big settlement was on behalf of Saskatoon policeman
John Popowich. The public
didn't learn what per centage of that $1.3M settlement went to
Dufour. We did see Eric Cline (the justice minister at the time)
on television graciously apologizing to Popowich followed by
Popowich apologizing to everybody -- including the prosecutors!
What was that all about?
So far we have not heard the Sterlings apologizing to Sullivan
and Bauer. And good for Frank Quennell for telling reporters
that his department had cut separate cheques to plaintiffs and
lawyer. This disclosure came in for some pounding on the Gormley
show as Ron Sterling once again thanked his lawyer and spoke
of the great sacrifice made on his behalf.
During the show, Pam Shetterley
phoned in to thank "her" lawyers -- Borden and Holgate,
who she also claimed had put money out of their own pockets and
stood by her from the beginning. I think this is the Stockholm
syndrome at work. The entire justice system held all the falsely
accused persons from the 1991 Satanic hysteria rampage hostage.
Lawyers who hung in there to get a cut of the action came to
be seen as saviors by the hostages.
Part of the schtick of hostage
takers is to make the hostages think they are really helping
them -- things could be much worse -- etc. Ms. Shetterley seems
not to remember that it was Richard Klassen's father-in-law who
went into his own pocket so she could receive a settlement. Has
she paid him back?
And she is also very well
aware that the trial preparation, the arrangements with the registrar
to accomodate the media, the heavy lifting, heavy thinking and
the major conduct by the plaintiffs' side at the Klassen/Kvello
civil proceeding was done by her brother, Richard Klassen and
his executive assistant, Angela Geworsky.
Sterling family lauds
lawyer in Martensville case
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
November 18, 2004
Ron and Linda Sterling are
lauding their lawyer, Geoff Dufour, for winning them a $1.35
million out-of-court settlement with the Government of Saskatchewan
and the Saskatoon and Martensville police.
"We never would have gotten
anything at all if it wasn't for him," Ron Sterling stated
in a news release issued Wednesday.
The Sterlings and an unnamed
individual, who was a youth when unfounded sexual abuse charges
were brought against them in 1992, sued the government and police
personnel for malicious prosecution.
On Monday, Justice Minister
Frank Quennell said the Government of Saskatchewan will pay $925,000
to settle the case.
He said the Saskatoon police
will pay $175,000 and the Martensville police $250,000.
Quennell also said $735,000
of the government's $925,000 payout would go to the plaintiffs'
lawyer.
He did not indicate what portion
of the police departments' payouts will go to lawyers.
The Sterling news release Wednesday
states that indications Dufour received 80 per cent of the settlement
funds are "absolutely untrue."
"He did not get 80 per
cent of what we got. That's totally erroneous," Sterling
said in an interview Wednesday. "He received much less than
that. He received far less than he deserved," he said.
Dufour paid "a great deal
of money out of his own pocket for court costs, examinations
for discoveries, transcripts, experts, travel and other expenses.
We could never have afforded to pursue the lawsuit if Mr. Dufour
had not risked his time and money for us," Sterling stated
in the news release.
In the interview, Sterling
said Quennell had no business revealing information about the
way the settlement money was disbursed.
"I just don't think it's
right that the government should have released any of the figures
to anybody, especially the amount the lawyers got is nobody's
business but mine and my wife's and my lawyer's," he said.
"Why did they release
what they paid Mr. Dufour? Why don't they release what they paid
their lawyers?" he said.
"I don't know why they
would want to put him in the position that it looks like he is
taking something that he's not doing."
In the statement, Sterling
said Dufour "is the only lawyer in Saskatchewan who has
obtained any settlements for any of the accused in the whole
Martensville affair."
"We owe Mr. Dufour a great
debt of gratitude. He worked tirelessly on our behalf against
five lawyers who defended the lawsuit as hard as they could --
and he won. There are very few lawyers in Saskatchewan who are
as talented or as honourable as he is," Sterling wrote.
A previous StarPhoenix story
left the impression that Dufour was paid more than he should
have been paid, Sterling said.
"We would like to have
seen him paid a lot more. He deserves more. We will always be
indebted to him," Sterling wrote.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004
Martensville suit settled
By Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
November 16, 2004
A couple who were cleared of
charges in a bizarre 1992 child sexual abuse case have settled
their malicious prosecution case out of court with the government
of Saskatchewan and the Saskatoon and Martensville police forces
for $1.3 million.
The Saskatchewan government
will pay Ron and Linda Sterling and a plaintiff who was a youth
at the time $925,000.
The Sterlings, who operated
a home day care in Martensville, and the youth will also share
a $250,000 settlement from Martensville police and $175,000 from
the Saskatoon Police Service, Justice Minister Frank Quennell
said Monday.
The government did not admit
liability in the settlement, Quennell said.
Just over 20 per cent -- $190,000
-- of the government's $925,000 payout will actually go to the
Sterlings, Quennell said.
"The lawyer for the plaintiffs
asked for separate cheques to cover legal costs and going to
the plaintiffs. I can advise that of the $925,000 the government
of Saskatchewan is paying to the plaintiffs and the lawyers,
we are paying $735,000 of that to their lawyers," Quennell
said.
Geoff Dufour, who represented
the Sterlings and the unnamed youth, was not available for comment
Monday.
Quennell did not say what portion
of the police departments' payouts will go to lawyers. Those
settlements will be paid through the two departments' insurers,
he said.
The Sterlings and the youth
filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against Crown prosecutors
Bruce Bauer, Leslie Sullivan, police personnel Michael Johnston,
Claudia Bryden, Rodney Moor, Wayne McGillivray, Owen Maguire,
Roy Fleming, Theordore Johnson, the government of Saskatchewan,
the board of police commissioners of Martensville and the Saskatoon
board of police commissioners.
The Sterlings, the youth and
five police officers had been charged with 180 criminal offences
which arose out of bizarre allegations of ritual sex abuse against
numerous children who had been cared for at the Sterling's home
day care.
The Sterlings were tried and
acquitted on all charges. Convictions against the youth were
overturned on appeal. Charges against some of the police officers
were stayed after the Sterling acquittals. The entire file resulted
in only one sexual assault conviction.
The stories of murder, animal
mutilation and Satanism were proved unfounded and the methods
of police and prosecutors came under heavy criticism.
Investigators had elicited
the allegations by asking the children leading questions and
prosecutors had gone ahead with charges despite police misgivings
about the veracity of the claims.
Investigators have improved
their child interview techniques since then, Quennell said.
"Knowing what we know
now about child victims and witnesses, a case with the same circumstances
as this case would have been handled differently," he said.
One of the police officers,
John Popowich, sued and in 2002 was awarded $1.3 million.
Three other police officers,
Darren Sabourin, Jim Elstad and Ed Revesz, who were also charged,
are pursuing their own malicious prosecution lawsuits.
"Hopefully these other
cases will be resolved soon. I can't guarantee that they will
be settled without a trial. It would be preferable if we don't
put people through the stress of a trial, but on the other hand
we have to arrive at an amount that is acceptable not only to
the plaintiffs but also to the defendants," Quennell said.
Quennell defended public prosecutors,
saying that the four malicious prosecution lawsuits represent
only a small number of the 82,000 charges brought each year by
Saskatchewan prosecutors.
"Clearly the vast majority,
99.9999 per cent of prosecutions, have not resulted in any such
type of lawsuit and none have arisen recently," he said.
Also on Monday, the Sterlings
filed suit against their former lawyer, Reginald Parker, alleging
he failied to properly represent them between 1992 and 2001,
when he retired.
The Sterlings and the unnamed
plaintiff claim that "Parker's failure to properly advance
their claims in a timely fashion severely compromised their ability
to obtain a proper or fair settlement or judgment from the defendants."
The claim states that each
of the three plaintiffs "would have obtained settlements
or judgments in excess of $3 million each for malicious prosecution,
negligence, conspiracy and breach of charter rights."
"Because the Sterlings
had lived in relative poverty since they were first prosecuted,
the defendants were able to starve the Sterlings into accepting
a disadvantageous settlement amount," the claim states.
The claim alleges that Parker
was instructed in 1995 to add their names to a malicious prosecution
suit already brought by the other plaintiffs. Parker waited too
long, so that the 12-month window for filing suit had expired.
The defendants successfully
deflected the late lawsuit in the mid-1990s but Parker never
told his clients, they claim. They didn't learn about the limitations
period until Dufour took over their case in 2002, the claim states.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004
Sask. finally settles
with falsely accused Sterling family
Canadian Press, Nov 15,
2004
Regina - The Saskatchewan government
has settled with the couple at the centre of an infamous case
of wrongful sex-abuse charges.
Justice Minister Frank Quennell
announced Monday that the province will pay $925,000 to Ron and
Linda Sterling and to a person who was a youth at the time the
charges were laid in 1992.
At the time, the Sterlings
operated a home day care in Martensville, north of Saskatoon.
They were among nine people charged with 180 sex-related offences
against children in their care. Only one of the accused was ever
found guilty.
The children's bizarre stories
of murder, animal mutilation and Satanism were eventually proved
to be lies and the methods of police and prosecutors came under
heavy criticism.
It was later determined that
investigators had elicited the allegations by asking the children
leading questions and prosecutors had gone ahead with charges
despite police misgivings about the veracity of the claims.
"Sexual abuse is one of
the most sensitive and difficult issues dealt with by our criminal
justice system," Mr. Quennell said Monday in a prepared
statement. "The difficulties are further complicated when
the victims are children."
It has now been recognized
that child victims and witnesses cannot be treated the same as
adults, he said.
The Sterlings decided to sue
for compensation after the province paid former police officer
John Popowich $1.3-million to settle his malicious prosecution
lawsuit last June. Three lawsuits related to the Martensville
case have yet to be settled.
© 2004 Bell Globemedia
Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
