The provincial Crown’s office wants Ontario’s highest court to toss the acquittal of a doctor who had been accused of murdering four of his patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, and order a new trial against him.
A trial for Dr. Brian Nadler — who once practiced about halfway between Ottawa and Montreal out of Hawkesbury and District General Hospital — had been set to run for five weeks starting July 2.
But in a stunning move at the 11th hour, his high-profile defence team and then the Crown announced Nadler would walk free that day after a short proceeding in which the Crown would call no evidence, and ask an Ottawa Superior Court judge for acquittals on all counts.
That’s what came to pass. Outside court that day, Toronto-based defence lawyer Brian Greenspan called the acquittals “vindication” for his client, and said it’s “tragic that Dr. Nadler’s life and reputation have been clouded by the innuendo of suspicion surrounding these deaths for the past three years.”
Nadler had been accused of four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of criminal negligence causing death involving four of his patients: 89-year-old Albert Poidinger, 80-year-old Claire Briere, 79-year-old Lorraine Lalande and 93-year-old Judith Lungulescu.
A notice of appeal filed with Ontario’s appellate court late Tuesday afternoon alleges Justice Kevin Phillips was mistaken when he decided to exclude all the evidence of one of the Crown’s experts, limited what another Crown expert could say, and admitted evidence of unspecified experts for the defence.
‘These rulings have decided the case’
The excluded and limited Crown evidence was important enough that prosecutors no longer felt they had a reasonable chance of success, the Crown told CBC News two days before Nadler’s acquittal.
“For all practical purposes, these rulings have decided the case against the Crown,” major case prosecutor Robin Flumerfelt, based in Toronto, wrote in an email at the time.
In order to preserve its right to appeal the pre-trial rulings, the Crown had to ask for Nadler to be arraigned and acquitted, Flumerfelt added.
Prior to his acquittal, Nadler had been out of custody on bail since July 2021.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario suspended his licence to practice days after he was first charged.
Criminal negligence charges had been laid in February
Nadler was initially charged with first-degree murder in March 2021 in connection with Poidinger’s death.
Ontario Provincial Police later laid three additional charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of Briere, Lalande and Lungulescu.
In February, a new indictment against Nadler added four charges of criminal negligence causing death involving the same four patients.
Court documents alleged Poidinger was murdered on March 26, 2021, and the three others were murdered on March 25.
Nadler’s Toronto-based defence team had maintained their client’s innocence and had said his patients died of COVID-19.
The defence did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the notice of appeal Tuesday evening.
After Nadler’s acquittal on July 2, Greenspan called the prospect of a Crown appeal “a procedural technicality.”