James Bowie’s conduct ‘unflattering’ but not criminal, lawyer argues

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Embattled Ottawa lawyer James Bowie may have behaved in some “unflattering” ways after he was accused of sexually harassing a former client, but his actions in 2023 were not criminal, Bowie’s defence lawyer argued in closing submissions at his judge-alone trial.

Criminal defence attorney Eric Granger told Ontario Court Justice Paul Cooper on Feb. 7 that the Crown had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt on charges of criminal harassment and uttering threats.

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Bowie was initially charged with extortion after he was accused of propositioning former client Leanne Aubin in an alleged exchange of legal services for oral sex.
Crown attorney Kerry Watson dropped the extortion charge following three days of testimony from Aubin, and the prosecution is no longer pursuing those allegations.

The remaining harassment charges relate to a former friend who testified as the Crown’s first witness at Bowie’s trial.

The woman’s identity is shielded by a publication ban imposed by Ontario Court Justice Paul Cooper. A publication ban on Aubin’s identity was lifted at her request earlier in the legal proceedings.

The woman testified as the Crown’s opening first witness and said she met Bowie on a dating app in 2020. The two maintained a friendship while Bowie was facing Aubin’s allegations and a Law Society investigation.

She watched him “descend into madness” in late 2022 and early 2023, she testified.

Bowie testified in his own defence at his trial and said he was severely depressed after news broke in the media in the fall of 2022 about allegations of professional misconduct involving Aubin.

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Bowie denied allegations of harassment and uttering threats and denied that he asked his former friend about acquiring a gun “to take care of” Aubin.

During her testimony, the former friend said Bowie mentioned guns to her at times in the context of suicide, but at other times he told her Aubin needed to “go away.”

Bowie, she testified, was “preoccupied” with Aubin’s accusations, paranoid and convinced he was being surveilled. He believed the woman would help him surveil Aubin and would get

Aubin to confess on tape to falsifying her misconduct complaint.

Bowie testified that he “never said anything by inference, by suggestion or by plain words to make any threat to any person at any time.”

Given the absence of evidence to corroborate what the witness claimed Bowie had said, “it truly is the classic ‘he said, she said,’” Granger told the judge during his closing address.
“Without the threats, you lose a significant component of what leads to the purported fear,” said Granger.

To reach a conviction on criminal harassment, Granger said, the alleged threatening conduct must rise to the level of being “a tool of intimidation which is designed to instill a sense of fear” in the recipient. And if the judge doesn’t accept the witness’s version of events, including the alleged death threats and firearm discussion, then that legal threshold isn’t met, Granger argued.

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Granger pointed to other key portions of the woman’s testimony that were “diametrically opposed” to Bowie’s own testimony.

Bowie specifically denied the woman’s allegation that he had made comments about exposing her involvement in sex work to her boyfriend.

He also gave a contrasting account of a meeting with the woman in a supermarket parking lot after Bowie had tracked her with a GPS and accused her of “ghosting” him.

The woman testified last month that her friendship with Bowie cooled in February 2023, when she lost her work permit and was facing immigration issues.

At the time, Bowie had offered to “pimp her out,” saying, “I already have people who will f— you. I know you’re vulnerable, let me help you and you’ll help me,” she testified.

The woman avoided Bowie’s texts and calls after that and avoided contact until they crossed paths weeks later in the supermarket parking lot.

According to Bowie’s testimony, after being unable to contact the woman, he placed a GPS tracking device on her car and followed her to the parking lot. He said that she had promised him information that would help clear his name.

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He denied the meeting took on a confrontational tone and denied that the woman asked him to leave.

Given the disputed facts, Granger said the judge would have to make an assessment of the reliability and credibility of the two principal witnesses.

“I’m not going to stand here and say that Mr. Bowie was the perfect witness,” Granger told the judge. “But frankly, as we all know, most witnesses are not.”

Considering the passage of time, Bowie’s state of mind and “imperfect mental health,” Granger argued, Bowie could still be an honest witness, if an imperfect one.

Granger said the woman demonstrated issues with her credibility and reliability during her testimony.

The witness recalled “events that actually did happen, meetings and exchanges and subjects that were addressed between the parties,” Granger said, but her account was “stitched together and embellished upon… in ways that make it look different than what actually happened.”

“While no doubt Mr. Bowie engaged in certain behaviours that were unflattering, many of which he acknowledged in his evidence before the court, and readily so… none of Mr. Bowie’s actions in the relevant time frame to this case were criminal,” said Granger.

Granger acknowledged that his client “may well have to answer to some of those behaviours in other forums.”

Bowie was sued by Aubin and was ordered to pay her $235,000 last year after failing to file a statement of defence in the civil case. The Law Society of Ontario misconduct investigation remains active.

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