It won’t be easy for Althea Reyes to drag another person before a judge. The one-time beauty queen has been declared a “vexatious litigant” for repeatedly abusing Ontario courts with frivolous lawsuits.The rare designation means she cannot continue or begin any new cases in any level of court in Ontario without first getting permission from a judge.Reyes is appealing the May 31 order by Justice Paul Perell restricting her access to the courts. Ontario’s attorney general had requested Reyes be declared vexatious, saying in a court application that her barrage of lawsuits and court motions are a frivolous “abuse of the court’s process and a waste of judicial and public resources.”A 2016 Star investigation found Reyes has sued at least 30 people, companies and organizations since 2011 in Toronto. She has targeted successful men she had relationships with, a school board, bank employees, a pawnshop, a dry cleaning business, lawyers who have opposed her in the courtroom, and a complete stranger. Reyes, who attended law school but is not licensed to practice law, has used her legal knowledge to drag out proceedings and aggravate the people she has pulled into court, the Star found. She has a long history of defending herself — often successfully — against criminal charges, including fraudulent impersonation. That charge was withdrawn in January after Reyes agreed to a peace bond and not to use, in any way, the name Allison Reyes. The new order does not prevent her from defending herself in court against criminal charges.On more than one occasion Reyes presented herself as a lawyer and took money to represent people in small claims court, prompting the Law Society of Upper Canada to obtain an injunction forbidding her to offer legal services. When reached by phone last week, Reyes hung up. She then tried to take the Star to court by filing an emergency motion that asked, among other things, for a judge to p ...
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