UPDATE: Durkin and Gregory ordered to pay special costs
Special costs are awarded in cases of “reprehensible” conduct during litigation
Supreme Court Justice Jasvinder Basran has delivered another blistering rebuke of international fugitive Timothy Durkin. In a new ruling, issued yesterday, the judge found Durkin and his business partner, Rodger Gregory, liable for special costs related to legal proceedings over Sooke Harbour House hotel. Special costs are meant to be punitive and can be assessed for “reprehensible” conduct during litigation.
As Capital Daily reported in April, Durkin moved to Sooke in early 2013, as US prosecutors were preparing to indict him on charges related to a Ponzi scheme. He teamed up with Gregory, an Oak Bay businessman, and the pair engaged in a scheme to defraud Sooke Harbour House owners Frederique and Sinclair Philip out of their business. As a result of their dealings with Durkin and Gregory, the couple lost their life savings.
After a 56-day trial, Justice Basran concluded that Durkin and Gregory were “two fundamentally dishonest individuals” and awarded the Philips about $4 million in compensatory damages.
The judge had similarly harsh words about Durkin and Gregory in yesterday’s ruling. Durkin, he wrote, “failed to comply with court orders, lied, deliberately misled the court, fabricated evidence, withheld admissions and denied facts, maintained unfounded allegations of fraud and criminal conduct, mischaracterized evidence, intentionally delayed and elongated the trial, and abused and intimidated witnesses. Any one of these acts may have been sufficient to warrant an order for special costs. Taken together, it is beyond doubt that Mr. Durkin’s conduct was more than reprehensible. It was disgraceful, offensive, and despicable.”
Gregory, the judge wrote, was “angry, bombastic, irreverent, and disrespectful” in court. The judge also noted that he “lied unabashedly.”
Frederique says the ruling brought her back to the stress of the yearslong battle with the pair. “It was like PTSD, reading it,” she said.
The registrar will now hold a special costs hearing to determine the amount to be assessed. The Philips are hoping it will fully cover their outstanding legal expenses, which come to a little more than a million dollars. It may be the only way the law firm, Crease Harman,, will get paid. "We don't have any more money," Frederique says.
Their attorney, Josh Bloomenthal, says collecting the special costs from Gregory and Durkin could be a challenge: “We’ll have to figure out if they have money and then where that money is.”
You can revisit our story in the Capital Daily podcast here:
The Man Who Stole a Hotel - Capital Daily | Spotify
Apr 22· Capital Daily
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