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Toronto
May 10, 2005 10:44:53 GMT -5
Post by Sher on May 10, 2005 10:44:53 GMT -5
TORONTO -- An Ontario man who alleges he developed a gambling addiction as a result of using a Parkinson's drug called Mirapex is the representative claimant in a proposed class action lawsuit.
A Toronto law firm said yesterday that plaintiffs are seeking compensation from the drug's Canadian manufacturer, Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd., and two American corporations, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer.
In his claim, Gerard Schick, the 56-year-old plaintiff from Midland, Ont., says he started taking Mirapex in August 1999, two years after being diagnosed with Parkinson's.
"Soon after taking this drug, once the dosage was increased a bit, within a few months he started gambling compulsively," Darcy Merkur, Schick's lawyer, said yesterday.
"This is a gentleman who, on an annual basis, would spend no more than $100 gambling."
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Toronto
May 13, 2005 12:50:57 GMT -5
Post by Sher on May 13, 2005 12:50:57 GMT -5
TORONTO -- A northern Ontario doctor accused of sexually abusing four of his patients wasn't telling the truth when he said his erections were "straight as an arrow," a disciplinary hearing heard yesterday.
Dr. Anthony DeLuco, a family doctor from Sault Ste. Marie, made the statement in March to counter claims from one of the complainants that she noticed his "crooked" thingy during one of the alleged incidents of abuse.
"He lied to you," said Pat Band, the lawyer for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, during closing arguments before a five-member disciplinary panel.
Band cited a report by Toronto urologist Ara Keresteci that described DeLuco's erect thingy as curving upward and inward towards his body.
DeLuco's lawyer, David Humphrey, countered during his own closing statements that the patient couldn't even recall whether DeLuco was circumcised. The shape of DeLuco's erections became a central issue during the often lascivious hearings, which wrapped up yesterday and could end up costing DeLuco his medical licence if he's found guilty.
Band said DeLuco should have recognized the situation he faced in February 2001, when another patient invited him to the bedroom of her female neighbour, where he was urged to join the pair's escalating sexual escapades.
DeLuco is a fomer chairman of the Ontario Medical Association's general and family practice section.
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Toronto
May 15, 2005 15:16:06 GMT -5
Post by Sher on May 15, 2005 15:16:06 GMT -5
TORONTO -- Two Toronto police officers have been cleared of wrongdoing for fracturing a man's skull when they tried to rescue him after he had set himself on fire in front of the Ontario Legislature, the province's Special Investigations Unit said yesterday.
Anh Vuong suffered the head injury and serious burns after setting fire to himself inside a van on March 9 as a large group of Ontario farmers and others had gathered at Queen's Park to protest government policies.
Vuong had been causing a disturbance when he was confronted by officers in his van. He showed police a pair of lighters before pouring gasoline over himself, causing the officers to step back.
Vuong tried to drive away, but was boxed in by police cruisers. He then lit himself on fire.
An officer smashed the driver's side window with an extraction tool, accidentally hitting Vuong in the head. He was pulled from the van and the flames were extinguished before he was rushed to hospital.
The officer assigned to break the glass could not see Vuong because the flames had spread so quickly inside the van, SIU director James Cornish said in a statement.
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Post by Sher on Jun 2, 2005 7:49:06 GMT -5
TORONTO -- A New Brunswick man who told police that a friendly dog scuttled his plan for a bloody shooting rampage was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison after admitting it was all a ploy to get surgery in jail.
Ontario Court Justice Brent Knazan described James Stanson as a "manipulative, duplicitous, entitled conman."
Stanson, 44, who was found with firearms and ammunition in his car, told police he'd been planning a mass murder but changed his mind after meeting a friendly dog.
He has since told court he invented the story because he wanted to be detained so he could receive heart surgery - surgery he got last November, while in custody.
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Toronto
Jun 21, 2005 10:37:10 GMT -5
Post by Sher on Jun 21, 2005 10:37:10 GMT -5
TORONTO -- A woman who took her badly burned and beaten six-year-old son on a Toronto transit bus last month broke down during a brief court appearance.
With sunken eyes and a sullen expression, the 26-year-old woman mouthed "Help me" to family members in the courtroom. Her bail hearing was held over until tomorrow.
She bowed her head and wept as officers took her back into custody. The woman was charged last week with aggravated assault and criminal negligence causing bodily harm after a city bus driver noticed the boy's injuries when he and his mother boarded the bus.
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Toronto
Oct 13, 2005 23:59:15 GMT -5
Post by Sher on Oct 13, 2005 23:59:15 GMT -5
Witness did nothing as T.O. boy starved to death CTV.ca News Staff
Courtroom spectators were left aghast Thursday, by testimony from a man who says he did nothing to help as a six-year-old boy starved to death before his eyes.
James Mills' shocking admission came as he was testifying in the first-degree murder trial of his former landlords, Elva Bottineau and her husband Norman Kidman.
Bottineau and Kidman are accused of neglecting their grandson Jeffrey Baldwin, until he died of starvation just six weeks shy of his sixth birthday. Jeffrey weighed an emaciated 21 pounds when he died in Nov. 2002.
Mills -- then-boyfriend of one of Bottineau and Kidman's daughters -- lived at the couple's home at the time.
As a boarder in the house where young Jeffrey starved to death, he was one of the few people who could have done something to stop the fatal neglect.
By his own admission, Mills had plenty of opportunities to intervene -- when he witnessed Jeffrey begging fruitlessly for food and water, for example, or when the boy and his seven-year-old sister were locked in a filthy room for days at a time.
The stench emanating from the unheated room where Jeffrey was often holed up with his sister was overpowering, Mills said, recalling how the children were "surrounded by feces and urine," and "treated worse than a dog."
But, as Mills testified Thursday, despite the horror he witnessed he didn't want to meddle for fear of losing his free room and board.
"I'm watching out for my own ass," Mills said in an videotaped statement to police. "I have a life of my own. I don't need to be stuck in jail for 10 to 20 years over something I said that was wrong."
Reporting from the downtown Toronto court, CTV's John Lancaster said Mills nonchalance on the stand drew icy glares from the judge, and sent many upset spectators leaving the court in tears.
Unfortunately, James Mills was not the only person who ignored the warning signs.
Jeffrey had been placed in his grandparents' custody by the Catholic Children's Aid Society -- despite Bottineau having been convicted in the death of her infant daughter and Kidman's record as a convicted child abuser.
In fact, a children's aid assessment of Bottineau conducted in 1970 described her as an "incompetent parent who was a danger to herself and others."
The agency had seized Jeffrey and his sister while it probed abuse allegations against their parents in 1998. The society has since admitted mistakes were made in the case, and has changed its screening policy for family adoptions.
Nevertheless, Jeffrey's paternal grandmother, who sat front-row in the courtroom Thursday, says she's still haunted by the little boy's suffering.
"It's very overwhelming, I think every day about it -- why and how -- and it's very difficult," Susan Dimitriadis told CTV News. "It's hard to think about it."
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