Spectator

Posts with category ‘Livent Trial’


Eddie Greenspan’s moment in the sun

Three days in, it’s pretty clear. With the cross-examinations of Gordon Eckstein and Maria Messina in the defence of Garth Drabinsky, Edward Greenspan seeks nothing short of vindication for his client and himself. After last summer’s mistake by the American lake, wherein his brutal cross-examination of David Radler had even his co-counsel objecting, Eddie is back on the beaten path—and loving it. This time, there are no more jack-in-the-box objections from impertinent Yankee grade schoolers. But there is plenty of time and latitude to roam through and excoriate the half-truths, prevarications and damnable lies of the Crown’s witnesses to what “they call crimes.”

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Livent trial hears of clock being pelted at former CFO

Eddie Greenspan’s continuing cross-examination of Maria Messina at the Livent trial took an odd turn shortly after noon yesterday when, in his continuing effort to erode, corrode and generally subvert Ms. Messina’s credibility, he mocked her testimony that former Livent finance VP Gord Eckstein once threw a clock at her during a meeting: “Do you recall how close it came [to hitting you?]… You must have thought he was stark raving mad…Sybil had run amok.”

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Nortel, Livent, BCE: A red-letter day for white-collar law

White-collar law, both civil and criminal, dominates this morning’s headlines: the Livent trial is ongoing, the BCE decision is expected from the Supremes later this afternoon and the RCMP is finally charging execs from Nortel and Royal Group Technologies (coverage of this last story comes complete with perp-walk photos and an alleged fraudster named—I kid you not—Vic De Zen).

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Finger wagging, browbeating, accusation, innuendo, disdain: Just another day at the Livent trial

As expected, Eddie Greenspan was in full flight today as he launched his cross-examination of former Livent CFO Maria Messina. He started by telling his prey that they would be spending quite a while together and advised her to confine herself to the specific questions he was asking. This led to 90 minutes of finger wagging, browbeating, accusation, innuendo and outright disdain. He characterized her consulting for a downtown Toronto law firm—one charged with representing the interests of Livent against their former executives Drabinsky and Gottlieb—as the “Stikeman Elliott witness protection program.” Furthermore, Eddie “accused” her of “taking three million bucks to prepare testimony in an effort to convict Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb.” It was all jolly innuendo accompanied by the usual apt and brash theatrics. What does it all amount to? Stay tuned.

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Grist for the Greenspan mill: A new witness steps up at the Livent trial

After a week’s interregnum, the Livent trial gears up again this morning with the cross-examination of former CFO Maria Messina. In her testimony to date, Messina more or less confirmed everything Livent’s other primary bean counter, Gord Eckstein, told the court about Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb’s alleged perpetual motion fraud machine. The difference highlighted by the Greenspans’ last ferocious cross-examination is that Eckstein is a pretty horrible guy: arrogant, mendacious and given to obscenity. Messina, on the other hand, has (so far) come off as saintly and long-suffering. She repeatedly testified that during her time at Livent she was “immobilized by fear” and that in preparing her memos revealing the fraud to new management, her hands shook so badly she had to get somebody else in the office to type it.

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Just another day at 361: Paul Bernardo to the left, Livent to the right

A courthouse is, by definition, a Petri dish of the absurd. The courthouse at 361 University Avenue was no exception yesterday as a hearing into the hows and wherefores of releasing the Bernardo tape took place simultaneously with (and not five yards away from) Brian Greenspan’s continued dismantling of Gord Eckstein at the Livent trial. Several members of the fourth estate hopped back and forth between the two, and the attendant vertigo was almost too much to bear.

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Foul language bumps Livent trial rating up to PG-13

The air turned a distinct shade of blue today at the Livent trial when the normally avuncular Brian Greenspan, having taken over his brother’s cross-examination of Gordon Eckstein, reacquainted the former Livent CFO with his expressed feelings for his former employers. Reading from a deposition given by a former Livent employee, Greenspan read testimony in open court stating that Eckstein had on numerous occasions referred to his bosses as “fuckheads, shitheads and idiots.”

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Pressure’s rising in the Livent trial, as Greenspan’s cross-exam goes into day five

Yesterday was Gordon Eckstein’s fifth day under cross-examination in the Livent trial, and for fans of Eddie Greenspan’s particular brand of withering, scornful sarcasm—the kind he marshalled against David Radler to mixed reviews—yesterday’s midday cross-exam was of pure vintage. Going back and forth as to the propriety of “papering the house” (i.e., buying up tickets, then giving them away so as to give the impression of a full house), Eddie and Eckstein snapped at each other like a couple of Dobermans scrapping for sport.

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What a difference a year makes for Eddie Greenspan

While Garth Drabinsky struggles mightily to remain among the unconvicted and non-felonious, the man making his case is in something of a battle of his own. Through the course of the Conrad Black trial, Edward Greenspan’s reputation as Canada’s defence attorney nonpareil took a ferocious beating. Leaving aside his client’s conviction, the much-publicized antipathy between himself and the jury, and his often rancorous relations with lawyers for Black’s co-accused, there still remains outstanding, as a matter of public record (courtesy Mark Steyn and Maclean’s), the accusation that he and Ed Genson (Black’s co-counsel) each demanded a substantial extra payment on the eve of closing arguments. So, in seeking to afford Drabinsky the best defence possible, Eddie, like a relief pitcher coming off a particularly severe shelling, is looking to impress on this, his next trip to the mound.

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Greenspan treats Eckstein like so much Radler

At the trial of Garth Drabinsky yesterday, Eddie Greenspan began his cross-examination of the Crown’s star witness, former Livent senior VP of finance Gordon Eckstein. And from all reports, it was Radler redux, as Eddie accused Drabinsky of everything short of sacking Rome. To wit, reported The Globe and Mail:

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Drabinsky trial inspires various takes on the F-bomb

The word fuck had a red-letter outing in yesterday afternoon’s Web reports of the goings-on at the Drabinsky trial. All told, the king of all obscenity found its way into three stories eight times, with only the Globe daring to spell it out in full, while the Star and Post opted for the more genteel f**k.

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In defence of Mark Steyn

A couple of weeks ago, I reported in this space about Mark Steyn’s appearance at Indigo’s Bay and Bloor store, during which Heather Reisman interviewed him. I suggested the event might better have been titled “White Guys’ Night Out” or some such, and played it mostly for laughs. The story picked up again yesterday, when the National Post featured an op-ed by left-coast writer Terry O’Neill on the subject of Macleans’—and by extension, Mark Steyn’s—upcoming trial before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (a discrimination complaint brought “on behalf of Muslim residents in the province of British Columbia” that will be heard on June 2). O’Neill reminds us that when you defend free speech, you’re doing it for everyone. Or, in the words of Noam Chomsky: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

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Livent bosses robbed Show Boat to pay Ragtime

Gordon Eckstein’s version of Livent’s accounting practices reminds me more and more each day of a punchline from the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup: the Minister of Finance says, “Here is the Treasury Department’s report, sir. I hope you’ll find it clear.” To which Rufus T. Firefly replies, “Why, a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child—I can’t make head or tail of it.”

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Today’s Livent verdict: Blue pens are very popular

As the Livent saga grinds on, the analogy I drew between Livent accountant Gordon Eckstein and Hollinger turncoat David Radler is being proven in spades—with one significant enhancement. Where Radler based his entire testimony on his recollection of a series of phone calls with the accused (Conrad Black), Eckstein is snaking his way through a positively Amazonian paper trail that leads to and from the desk of Garth Drabinsky. And, natch, it all suggests an accounting fraud that makes the shilly-shallyings of our old pal Jack Boultbee pale in comparison.

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Livent trial revelations: Cooked books rooks schnooks

He’s a lot taller, rather more phlegmatic, and considerably more fragrant (having applied substantial splashes of eau de something), but Livent’s former VP finance Gordon Eckstein had about him more than a whiff of David Radler when he walked into court yesterday to testify against his erstwhile bosses Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb. The examination—in chief carried out with brisk efficiency by the Crown’s lead prosecutor, Robert Hubbard—directed Eckstein to tell the court that though he was the one who cooked Livent’s books, he did so at the behest of Drabinsky and Gottlieb (both of whom were sitting not 20 feet away).

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Greenspans initiate Radler redux at Livent trial

For those of us who sat through the trial of Conrad Black, yesterday afternoon at the Livent fraud trial was a trip down memory lane. Eddie Greenspan (acting for Garth Drabinsky) took over the cross-examination of former Livent contractor Peter Kofman from his brother Brian (acting for the co-accused, Myron Gottlieb). In what was clearly a warm-up for the main event, the cross-examination of former Livent senior VP finance Gordon Eckstein (playing, for the purposes of this trial, the role of David Radler), Eddie and Brian led Kofman through a series of questions meant to portray Eckstein—in the words of one press gallery wag—“in horns and a tail.”

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Day two of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Drabinsky and Gottlieb

What started as a tedious prologue transformed, in a flash, into a testy rough-and-tumble drama. The shift in tone was undeniably due to today’s introduction of Peter Kofman, Livent’s contractor, whose job throughout the ’90s was to renovate and build the theatrical palazzos that housed various Phantoms, Showboats and Sunset Boulevards. In a mood that might best be described as somewhere between abysmal and exasperated, Kofman testified on the Crown’s behalf regarding Livent’s accounting practices—practices that would have put a blush on even Max Bialystock’s face.

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Theatre puns running low among journos at Drabinsky-Gottlieb trial

This country’s most famous and fabulous theatre impresario and his long-time partner went on trial for fraud yesterday morning in a large, airy courtroom (under an enormous coat of arms featuring a lion and a unicorn and the words Dieu et mon droit) on the fourth floor at 361 University Avenue—a mere driver and a wedge from the theatres that made Garth Drabinsky famous. The setting was likely a little dull for Garth’s taste. He did look good: tan and fit in a snappy check suit, with that insane shag carpet still growing out the top of his head. There were the usual oyeh, oyeh, oyehs, followed by the introduction of the Crown and its opponents, the Greenspan brothers.

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Cue the madness—Drabinsky and Gottlieb are now on trial

After a mere decade of delays and distractions, former theatre impresario and alleged fraudster Garth Drabinsky will finally see the inside of a Canadian courtroom. He and his Livent Inc. partner Myron Gottlieb are facing criminal charges before Ontario Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Benotto—she of the tainted blood trial. Reporting on CBC Radio this morning, Mike Hornbrook pointed out that it’s considered “Canada’s largest ever prosecution of corporate fraud”—a good thing, too, considering the Americans were ready to prosecute these two as long ago as 1999. Unlike their former board member Conrad Black, Gottlieb and Drabinsky had the good sense to hole up in Canada and wait for the RCMP to conduct its investigation (an indictment took three years). As for the subsequent delay in the case coming to trial, Drabinsky can thank (in part) a certain aforementioned peer of the realm: the Crown was only too happy to accommodate Eddie Greenspan’s crowded calendar as he flew about the continent defending Black.

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