First they fought fires, then they fought cancers.Now they’re fighting among themselves in a bitter legal battle over millions of dollars — a battle that grows uglier and more acrimonious as thousands of pages of court documents pile up.On one side is the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association (OPFFA), which represents more than 10,000 active firefighters across the province.On the other side are Hamilton firefighter Colin Grieve and a Toronto firefighter named Paul Atkinson. For years, they have helped victims settle claims with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.Read more:Two veteran firefighters facing fraud, money laundering charges over workers’ compensation claimsFraud allegations ‘hard to believe,’ says firefighter’s widowFirefighters launch counter-claim against Ontario Professional Fire Fighters AssociationGrieve was one of the hundreds of Hamilton firefighters who battled the notorious Plastimet blaze two decades ago. He then became an advocate for colleagues stricken with work-related cancers, sought after for his expertise in navigating the bureaucracy of the WSIB claims process.The two sides are now fighting over what has happened to some of the settlement money that has gone, in many of the cases, to the widows and families of firefighters who died from illnesses linked to their jobs.So far, there has been a $4-million lawsuit filed by the OPFFA against Grieve and Atkinson, a $12-million countersuit filed by the two firefighters against the OPFFA and its former president, Carmen Santoro, and a total of eight criminal charges laid by Halton police against Grieve and Atkinson.The OPFFA alleges the two firefighters “misappropriated” at least $3 million that should have gone to the association while Grieve and Atkinson claim their actions were condoned by the OPFFA.Each side has declared the other’s actions and statements to be some combination of “outrageous,” “malic ...
|
