In Which Darcy and Deacon Back Down

When we left off the other day, I had just got subpoenas so I could call as witnesses in my criminal trial the professors who accused me of carrying out a home invasion. The judge had further ordered, to my surprise, that I should serve the subpoenas on Mr. Meronek of Darcy and Deacon, rather than hiring a process server. Since this would save me at least $300 in fees, I was glad to accept this.

And then Mr. Meronek refused to accept the subpoenas!

I exchanged several emails with him in which I encouraged him to confer with the Crown's office and inform himself as to what the judge had ordered, but it is not at all clear to me that Mr. Meronek made any efforts in that direction. He seemed to maintain a steadfast position that he had nothing to do with the criminal trials, and that I should hire a process server. (In contradiction to the specific instructions I had received from Judge Guy, of course.)

So with nothing left to do, I went down to Provincial Court and filed another application. This one was pretty simple: I asked the Judge to instruct Mr. Meronek to accecpt the subpoenas. I filed it on Thursday with the court, and on Friday morning I went to Mr. Meronek's office to serve him with a copy.

He wouldn't come out of his office! His assistant came to the front desk and told me that Mr. Meronek was not interested in my motion because he had nothing to do with my criminal case, and he was not accepting service. I told her that since the motion was in her hands, I was going to consider it as "served", and Mr. Meronek could decide whether or not he wanted to show up in court. And then I left.

Well, they must have reconsidered their position, because before the end of the day I received an email from Lindsay Mulholland, Mr. Meronek's associate, to the effect that although Mr. Meronek would in fact be out of town on the day of my hearing, she would be there to represent him. She further informed me that they would be resisting my attempt to serve the subpoenas through their office. So the battle lines were drawn.

I have to say I was pretty baffled by their position. I had a court order in my hands stating that I should serve the subpoenas on their firm. And it's not like doing so would have been any hardship for them. They were dealing with these people on a regular basis, and incidentally getting paid a pretty good hourly rate (I would assume) for their involvement in affairs pertaining to Marty Green. And although I had always been treated with the greatest of courtesy by Ms. Mulholland, it was at the same time pretty clear that Mr. Meronek for his part did not like me at all, not one little bit. So I could understand that he didn't want to help me out by serving my subpoenas. But on what basis did he intend to fight it out in court?

Well, I don't know exactly what happened between yesterday and today, but at the very end of the day I received the following email from Ms. Mulholland, with a copy to the Crown Prosecutor:

Mr. Green / Mr. Grieves,

Please be advised that we are prepared to accept service of your subpoenas on behalf of the University of Winnipeg and associated parties. I believe this eliminates the need for the Application hearing scheduled for this Thursday at 2pm.

Apologies to both of you for any inconvenience.

Mr. Green please advise when you would like to effect service at the offices of D'Arcy and Deacon so I can ensure availability.

Please contact me with any questions or comments.

Lindsay M Mulholland

It seems I had won this round. But it's not over yet. The real fun starts when we show up in court on September 3rd for my criminal trial. That is, if the University's witnesses have the guts to show up...