A story just broke this morning in the Toronto Star with an exclusive with Eric Lamaze:
"Canada’s most decorated Olympic show jumper Eric Lamaze says he “made a little mistake” by presenting a forged medical document to an Ontario court as part of an attempt to delay a lawsuit. But he insists he did in fact have cancer as the document claimed and says he’s hurt by the public’s “mission” to find evidence against him.
“You’ll never find it, because I did have cancer,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Brussels. Still, he says, “was I deceitful here and there to protect some doctors and protect this and that? Of course I was.”
For the last 13 years, Lamaze and his Torrey Pines Stable have been embroiled in a lawsuit related to the sale of horses to a promising Ontario rider, Karina Frederiks Aziz, who claims the animals were below the quality Lamaze represented them as.
This summer, as that case finally neared a trial date, a series of documents were submitted to the court as evidence that Lamaze was undergoing surgery for throat cancer and too ill and cognitively impaired to proceed as scheduled.
But on Sept. 5, after hearing evidence that the documents were “fraudulent,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Marvin Kurz ruled that “Mr. Lamaze attempted to obtain a result from the court based upon forged medical documents.”
Lamaze says the letter allegedly signed by a neurosurgeon at the Chirec Cancer Institute in Belgium was never intended to be used in Ontario court. He explains that the document was instead meant to be used to move a court date in an American lawsuit that has frozen his bank accounts.
“I’m not healthy — that’s all there is to it. I’m 40 per cent of what I used to be. People should feel sorry that I’m 40 per cent of what I used to be and not worry if I have cancer or not.”
Lamaze, 55, was born in Montreal and raised in particularly challenging circumstances in a family mired in drug and alcohol addiction. He has made a career out of defying the odds and earning second (and third) chances.
From a job as a stable boy he rose to the top of the show jumping world. He was then barred from competing in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics over separate positive tests for cocaine. He came back from that to win individual gold and team silver at the 2008 Beijing Games with his famed Hickstead. He then returned again after the tragic death of Hickstead in the ring, to win bronze at the 2016 Rio Games.
The latest controversy has sent shock waves through the equestrian world.
“He’s revered,” said Jennifer Anstey publisher of Horse Sport, the Canadian publication that was the first to report on the fraudulent documents.
“Everybody, you know, wanted him to overcome the difficulties he’s faced in his life. And he did for many years but clearly something else has gone awry,” Anstey said.
It took a private detective in Brussels an hour and a half to round up the evidence that has essentially torpedoed Lamaze’s position in the lawsuit that’s been dragging on since 2010.
According to a court affidavit, a private detective hired by the Aziz family, visited two medical facilities, spoke with one doctor and Chirec’s legal department to confirm the documents are “fraudulent.” And Pirotte, one of the doctors Lamaze says is treating him, stated: “It’s a fake. I never wrote this letter and moreover I have no memory of such a patient.”
Justice Kurz ordered Lamaze to pay the plaintiffs’ legal costs of $32,400 for the attempted adjournment by Sept. 29 or see his pleadings struck, which essentially would amount to the court finding in favour of Aziz’s Iron Horse Farm.
Kurz said this was appropriate “in light of Mr. Lamaze’s egregious behaviour and in order to protect the integrity of the court in the face of such conduct.”
Lamaze, who seems more concerned about people questioning him about his health than the state of his Ontario legal case, said he wouldn’t pay a “penny.”
“I don’t care if that case gets to trial.”
That action, according to his long-standing lawyer, is for $850,000 plus interest and costs. (Lamaze is also being sued in the U.S. over partnership agreements and horse-related deals.)
Tim Danson has been Lamaze’s lawyer and friend for 30 years and by his side through his challenging years with the Olympic drug-test trials. He’s struggling to wrap his head around what’s going on with Lamaze.
“This was supposed to be a simple adjournment just based on the fact that he has cancer and he just had surgery and the surgery was real,” Danson said.
Danson said he never doubted that Lamaze had brain cancer or that it had spread to his throat requiring surgery and making it impossible to speak on the phone and properly prepare for his trial. So he never saw a reason to doubt the medical documents he gave to the court stating that very thing. But now he’s no longer certain about anything.
“Now I’m questioning everything,” he said.
“All my instincts tell me that he’s got a serious medical problem. I don’t know what it is because I always thought it was the cancer. But, in light of this, it may not be. Or maybe there’s an explanation. I don’t know.”
After the document forgeries were revealed in court, Danson asked to remove himself as Lamaze’s counsel.
“It’s with tremendous regret and disappointment but no lawyer can do their job properly unless they know that everything that’s being represented to them and they represent to the court is truthful.”
In speaking with the Star, Lamaze admitted that he made a mistake with the letter purportedly signed by Dr. Pirotte. “I’ll take the blame where the blame is due.” But he maintains all the details about his health are real.
When asked about producing proof of his cancer, he replied: “That’s not going to happen.”
His doctors do their job — “they’ve saved my life so many times” — and they’re not “sharing details of anything,” he said.
He said people have seen him “for five years, yellow, green, falling down, throwing up,” and that should be proof enough.
“It’s damaging to me, to my health to be second guessed,” he said.
“I’m really tired of the whole thing, to be honest. I’ve got to finish all these lawsuits, I’ve got to do this, do that, tie up a few loose ends. But I believe I’m going to own 10 horses all the time — one rider, two grooms — and I will be gone. I will be at the sea, riding my boat and just relaxing and just enjoying life.”"
