Trini in sex scandal with Canadian judgeMonday, September 6 2010
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Alexander Chapman...
TRINIDADIAN Alexander Chapman, 44, was last week embroiled in controversy after it emerged that he filed a complaint against a Canadian judge in Manitoba, Canada, which contained a series of nude photographs.
The complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council brought against Lori Douglas, the associate chief justice of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench’s family division, was filed by Chapman in July, according to CBC News. It resulted in Douglas last week stepping aside from the bench to only perform “administrative duties”.
According to CBC, Chapman is originally from Trinidad. He said he first met Douglas’s husband, Jack King, in 2002, when he retained him from the Winnipeg law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman to handle his divorce.
Five months later, Chapman said King invited him out for a drink and mentioned a porn website devoted to interracial sex, particularly between black men and white women.
“He was talking to me about websites and stuff, and he gave me a website to go to called Darkcavern.com,” said Chapman.
King supplied him with a password, Chapman said, and told him to look at a section called “Our White Princesses,” where white women post photos to attract black men. Numerous nude photos of King’s wife, who was a lawyer at the same firm her husband worked at, were posted there, Chapman said.
“I wanted to puke,” Chapman said. “[The pictures] were disgusting. I couldn’t believe my lawyer was doing this to me.”
An ad on the Darkcavern site, seen by CBC News, reportedly showed nude photos of Douglas and seeks a “smooth black male or Mexican” to join the couple during a trip to Cancun in February 2002. The ad specifies that the man is wanted “to seduce her with the intent of getting her enmeshed in the submissive, multi-partner, interracial sex scene.” Photos of Douglas have since been removed from the Darkcavern site.
Chapman is suing Douglas, King and the law firm in separate actions, seeking CAN $67 million in damages. The case has stirred debate over: the efficiency of the Canadian screening process for the appointment of judges; sexual taboos and the need to break them and the role of the media in publishing controversial stories. In an editorial this week, the CBC defended its decision to run with the story.
“We believe this story about the judge whose lawyer-husband had published nude photos of her on the internet has important implications for the public,” CBC’s Manitoba Managing Editor Cecil Rosner said. “The issues here deal with the duty of a potential judge to disclose pertinent matters in advance of his or her selection; and the responsibilities of judicial selection committees as they make their choices.”
Chapman said he was emotionally distraught by the advances and didn’t know how to handle his lawyer’s persistent proposals. “As a black person, a black guy, I’m really sad that he looked at me as being a sex object.”
He said he didn’t have enough money to switch lawyers and had been warned by a judge not to delay his divorce case any further. Chapman said the couple invited him to their home in Birds Hill, northeast of Winnipeg, but he never went and he denies ever having sexual relations with Douglas.
When his divorce concluded, Chapman said he filed a complaint to the managing partners at Thompson Dorfman Sweatman. Soon after the complaint, King left the firm. Chapman received a $25,000 cash payment from King in return for promises not to take legal action against King and his partners.
Gange, King’s lawyer, citing King’s depression at the time, said the events Chapman alleges were part of an isolated incident and that King’s wife didn’t know he was soliciting a client to have sex with her. Gange said Douglas also was unaware her husband was posting pictures online.
King, in a letter to the Manitoba Law Society, acknowledged that he did meet and talk about sex with Chapman, but only after Chapman obtained his divorce in April 2003. He said Chapman would often initiate the conversations.
“At no time did I have an impression that Mr Chapman felt uncomfortable having these discussions with me,” King wrote in the letter, dated August 12. He acknowledged that he talked about the possibility of Chapman having an affair with Douglas, but denied that she had knowledge of it.
“I do regret that I had any conversations or any contact at all with Mr Chapman that did not relate strictly to his divorce issues,” he said. “I apologised to Mr Chapman through Mr Gange upon being advised that my conduct had offended Mr. Chapman.”
He said he was coping with the deaths of his best friend and his brother at the time.
Douglas remained a partner at Thompson Dorfman Sweatman until 2005, when she was appointed to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench. She was later named associate chief justice and now sits on the Canadian Judicial Council, an agency that sets policies for the federal judicial system. The council is the same agency that hears complaints about the conduct of federally appointed judges, and the same agency Chapman sent his complaint to.
