Did Dr. Nick Rathe make up a story about being the victim of a fraud or did another man indeed impersonate him at a car dealership and sign his name on loan documents?
A Superior Court judge is expected to make that determination next month when he rules in the public mischief trial of the former Belle River family doctor.
Rathe is charged for allegedly sending police on a wild goose chase in 2006. He claimed that a young woman he had hired as an office worker had taken his driver’s licence and used it to have another man impersonate him when she took out a loan on a used Hyundai Tiburon.
The woman, Michelle Timothy, testified Rathe accompanied her to Windsor Hyundai, saying she and Rathe were lovers at the time. Timothy later was one of several former patients who complained to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, which stripped Rathe of his medical licence in 2012.
During Rathe’s trial last week, court also heard a dealership salesman and financial manager testify they were certain it was Rathe and not some other man who signed the loan documents.
Rathe, who was convicted of assault in 2007 in relation to a road rage incident involving another woman, represented himself at trial. Superior Court Justice Christopher Bondy presided over the trial, coaching Rathe through his cross-examination of Crown witnesses. Bondy has reserved his judgment.
Apart from giving an opening address at the start of the trial, Rathe did not testify in his own defence.
ssacheli@windsorstar.com or Twitter @WinStarSacheli
