Former medical doctor Charles Nicholas Rathe accused an OPP officer of bias Tuesday, claiming the cop did not do a thorough investigation into his 2007 fraud complaint.
“What was all the evidence you used to formulate your opinion as to my guilt,” Rathe asked Const. Ben Metcalfe. It was one of many questions Superior Court Justice Christopher Bondy advised Rathe was inappropriate to put to the witness.
Rathe, 51, is representing himself at trial where he is charged with public mischief for allegedly filing a bogus complaint with police. Rathe went to police with the allegation that a patient he had hired to work in his now-defunct family practice stole his ID and forged his signature on a car lease.
The patient was also a complainant in an investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the regulatory body for medical doctors in the province. The College found Rathe had a sexual relationship with the woman during which he wrote her prescriptions for opiates. Rathe was stripped of his licence to practise medicine in 2012.
Metcalfe testified he communicated with the college’s investigator. When he learned Rathe did not dispute what the college’s investigation uncovered, including that he had co-signed the car lease for the woman, he stopped looking into Rathe’s complaint.
“We had the icing on the cake,” Metcalfe said.
Rathe, who has battled drug addiction, is no stranger to the justice system. In 2007 he was convicted of assault for punching a woman in the face during a road rage incident.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons, the regulatory body for medical doctors in the province, had previously suspended his licence in 2006.
In his current trial, Rathe said his lawyer and the college drafted a statement that was used in the disciplinary hearing against him. Rathe said, while he agreed to the statement, he did not sign it. He argues it should not be used against him at trial.
The trial is scheduled to last all week.
ssacheli@windsorstar.com or Twitter @WinStarSacheli
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