Lawyer accused of authoring defamatory web post now Alberta crown prosecutor!

Alberta Crown Prosecutor Lionel Chartrand: File No. CI 05-01-41955

Tansi/Good Day Readers:

This litigation has generated billable hours for MMF lawyer Murray Trachtenberg since at least mid-September, 2003 as suggested by his internal file number (2003-20).

Murray Norman Trachtenberg

Wonder if the Courts will again reward his clients with another loonie plus the Counselor's legal costs? The Manitoba Metis Federation is funded by Canadian taxpayers.

Since publication of the Press Release, Mr. Niederhoffer has practised law with Winnipeg's Campbell Marr LLP where he teamed with Anders Bruun to successfully represent former Manitoba Metis Lieutenant Governor W. Yvon Dumont in a lawsuit brought by the publicly financed Metis National Council represented by Murray Trachtenberg. He subsequently joined the Community Legal Association of Manitoba and is currently a Staff Solicitor with the Newfoundland-Labrador Legal Aid Commission.

Jeffrey J. Niederhoffer

If you have any questions or comments for Mr. Niederhoffer, please send to pieuk@shaw.ca and we'll pass them along.

Clare L. Pieuk
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DEFENCE LAWYER CALLS ON MMF TO NAME CHARTRAND IN LAWSUIT - Emails Prove Chartrand Authored Petition: Niederhoffer

PRESS RELEASE (Number 3)
Friday December 16, 2005
For Immediate Release

WINNIPEG - A lawyer for one of the defendants in a defamation suit brought by the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) is calling on the MMF to include Winnipeg lawyer Lionel Chartrand as a defendant to the suit.

Terry Belhumeur and Clare Pieuk, respectively the domain-name owner and webmaster of CyberSmokeSignals (www.cybersmokesignals.com), are being sued by the MMF for having posted on the website in January 2004 a petition containing allegedly defamatory comments about President David Chartrand and the MMF Board.

Jeff Niederhoffer, the lawyer for Mr. Pieuk, says his client has e-mails which show that the petition was actually authored by Chartrand, a lawyer with Legal Aid who at the time agreed to advise both Belhumeur and Pieuk on due-diligence issues involving the website."

Chartrand wrote the petition, and the idea for it originated with him," says Niederhoffer. "It was Mr. Chartrand who originally suggested the idea for a petition, and on January 21, 2004, he emailed a completed draft of the petition to my client and recommended he post it on CyberSmokeSignals."

A few days later, Niederhoffer claims, Pieuk posted the petition on CyberSmokeSignals exactly as written by Chartrand.

Niederhoffer says he believes that, in the interests of fairness, the MMF should add Lionel Chartrand as a defendant to the action. However, the lawyer also indicates he is prepared to act on his own if necessary."

If the MMF doesn't take action within a reasonable time to include Chartrand as a party, we will likely bring a third-party claim of our own against Chartrand, or find some other way to bring him into this action," Niederhoffer confirms. At the very, very least, we are going to call Chartrand to testify in court as to his role in all this."

Chartrand is currently retained by the MMF as a consultant.

Any Questions, Please Contact:

Jeffrey J. Niederhoffer
Barrister and Solicitor
PO Box 48081 RPO
LakewoodWinnipeg, MB R2J 4A3
Telephone: (204) 471-868
2E-mail: jjn@niederlaw.com