Private eye convicted of obstructing justice in TV host’s harassment case will get to keep his license, court hears

A private investigator who was convicted of obstructing justice for “actively intimidating witnesses” in a criminal case is legally allowed to keep his license, a crown attorney told court during the sentencing hearing for Mitch Dubros.

Due to a “gap” in Ontario legislation, the list of criminal offenses that would bar a private investigator from keeping a provincial license does not include obstruction of justice, Crown Katie Beaudoin told court.

Dubros was convicted of obstructing justice last fall for his role in speaking to witnesses scheduled to testify in a preliminary hearing involving allegations that TV and radio host Mike Bullard harassed Citytv reporter Cynthia Mulligan. Dubros was working for Bullard’s defense lawyer, Calvin Barry, who according to Dubros instructed him to “dig up dirt.”

Despite the finding of guilt in this case, Mr. Dubros will be able to maintain his license as a private investigator and his agency, ”Beaudoin told Justice Kenneth Campbell of the Superior Court of Justice. Dubros is responsible “not only for his actions but for the actions of other private investigators that he employs,” she said.

Beaudoin’s comments came Tuesday morning during her submissions on sentencing in Dubros’ case. In calling for a jail sentence, Beaudoin said a strong message of deterrence has to be sent because Dubros “threatened to publicly humiliate” witnesses who were in the public eye.

Beaudoin asked for imprisonment for three to three-and-a-half years. Defense lawyer Frank Addario asked for a six-month conditional sentence to be served at home, with breaks for getting groceries, medical appointments and employment. Justice Campbell will pronounce the sentence on March 1.

Dubros, 62, who has been a licensed private investigator for three decades, was convicted last fall. As reported in the Star, Dubros either visited or telephoned people, including Mulligan, in the lead-up to the Bullard case. Dubros’ own secretly-made recordings show he told one person he could “sling hearsay that will taint all of your professional careers” and another “I can be ruthless, I can dig every skeleton of you.” When he visited Mulligan at her home one Sunday morning prior to the Bullard hearing, he told her he was hoping for a resolution to the Bullard case that would stop “any more garbage coming out.” Mulligan told court she saw this as a “veiled threat” not to testify.

In her victim impact statement read into court Tuesday, Mulligan said Dubros abused the justice system and “tried to scare me into silence so I would not testify against the man who frightened my daughters and me, someone I simply dated for a short period of time, someone police thought was so unstable they told me to take my daughters and move out of our home, a coward who was desperately trying to avoid justice. ”

As the Star has previously reported, a criminal harassment charge against Bullard was earlier dismissed at a preliminary inquiry on June 1, 2018. On June 8, 2018, Bullard pleaded guilty to one count of making harassing phone calls. He also pleaded guilty to two breaches of a court order – one of which required him to have no contact, directly or indirectly, with Mulligan. Bullard was discharged from court with a clean criminal record and six months of probation.

Dubros’ lawyer Addario said his client is remorseful and “acknowledges the effect of his behavior on the victim.” Addario said Dubros has had no criminal record, is an “older defendant” and is suffering from “mental health and physical health issues.” Court heard Dubros had a severe motorcycle accident last fall and has bipolar disorder.

A pre-sentence report filed in court describes Dubros as a high-school dropout who started his own business after Grade 10 delivering “paper products” to businesses. He was married for a time and divorced, but maintains a good relationship with his ex-wife. It was his ex who introduced him to the world of private investigation and for a time they had a firm together, Dubros & Associates.

In the pre-sentence report, Dubros is described as “not a typical investigator … not driven by money.” Dubros told court that Bullard’s lawyer offered him $ 1,000, but never paid. Dubros has been on Ontario Disability Support Program payments for the past 10 years – that is his main income, court heard – though he has continued to work as a private investigator. Court heard Dubros is $ 1.5 million in debt, which he said was due to the expense of caring for ailing parents (they passed away in 2020) and a $ 30,000 eye surgery carried out in Minnesota in 2018.

In his own statement to the probation officer who completed the report, Dubros said “I used to be smart” – attributing a cognitive decline to his motorcycle accident last year.

As to his conviction for obstructing justice, Dubros told the probation officer his “heart was in the right place but my mouth was not.” Dubros has recently learned to fly drones and is working towards his “pilot license,” the report states.

The issue of whether someone can keep their private investigator license when convicted of obstructing justice was discussed at length during the sentencing hearing.

Defense lawyer Addario said Dubros was now barred from being a private investigator in Ontario because of the requirement to have what the Private Security and Investigative Services Act refers to as a “clean criminal record.”

Crown Beaudoin countered by providing to the court the actual wording of the regulation, which has a list of 83 criminal convictions that would bar someone – among them, murder, theft, forgery, fraud, break and enter, and “stopping mail with intent. ” Obstruct justice is not among them. However, the crime of “intimidation of a justice system participant” is. That charge was among those originally laid by police in 2018. The charge of obstructing justice was later added and, shortly after, the intimidation charge was withdrawn.

Legal sources say that the intimidation charge is more difficult to prove.

The case is back to court for sentencing on March 1.