EDMONTON SUN
A city cop today denied allegations that his former supervisor was having an affair with a co-worker who this summer launched a $4-million sexual-harassment lawsuit against Edmonton police.
“No, he did not,” Const. Mark Kubitza said when asked about the alleged affair between the senior officer and fellow Const. Angie Berube.
Kubitza was testifying at the disciplinary hearing into charges that Angie Berube’s husband, Const. Sebastien Berube, improperly left two strip-club servers unsupervised in the constables’ lounge at police headquarters, February 2005.
Sebastien also faces charges over his behaviour on Whyte Avenue during the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs and a 2005 crash with another driver, whom he allegedly threatened.
As the hearing opened today, lawyer Tom Engel made it clear Sebastien’s defence will focus on claims he is the victim of malicious allegations by the senior officer.
During his cross-examination of Kubitza, Engel reiterated accusations in the lawsuit that the supervisor was “motivated by jealousy” when he reported Sebastien’s alleged conduct in the constables’ lounge. Those reports were false, the lawsuit maintains.
The senior officer hasn’t filed a statement of defence in the lawsuit.
None of the allegations in it have been proven in court, but the senior officer is set to tell his side of the story when the disciplinary hearing reconvenes in February.
Meanwhile, Kubitza today testified that he and the senior officer were disturbed when they went into the constables’ lounge in 2005 to find Berube, another man and two women who were “dressed rather provocatively” sitting at a table with cans of beer in front of them. Berube then left the guests there alone, Kubitza said.
Later, he and the senior officer “expressed to each other how we felt it was inappropriate that these people were being left in the lounge with no supervision,” Kubitza said.
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