The GTA lawyer acting for insurance companies against tow truck and body shop operators had to shutter office and leave country due to threats
Civil litigation lawyer Lisa Carr had to shutter her practice and flee the country because York Regional Police told her they couldn’t protect her.
She was caught in the middle of the tow truck wars.
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Carr’s clients were insurance companies that were fed up with tow truck operators and their partner body shops charging exorbitant impound, fake repair and storage fees. A court decision released last week in Newmarket offers disturbing details on how a lawyer just doing her job almost lost her life.
The reign of brazen intimidation began one night in November 2018 when someone smashed the front window of the empty Carr Law office in a Vaughan plaza and set fire to a small tree in the lobby. In January 2019, security video footage showed a man breaking the front door window, throwing gas containers inside, and calmly tossing in a match.
It seems her enemies thought the two firebombings weren’t enough for Carr to get the message. In August 2019, the threats against the lawyer became even more direct.
Days after Carr Law appeared in court on behalf of an insurance company suing a particular tow truck operator, a vehicle pulled up beside Carr’s and opened fire. The gun was loaded, but it jammed. The offence came to light on Sept. 10, 2019, when police located a cellphone video of the incident and Thomas Sliwinski was later charged with attempted murder.
“The pace of the violence against Ms. Carr quickened,” Superior Court Justice Michelle Fuerst said in the recent ruling.
It was just before 1 p.m. on Aug. 29, 2019, and an associate who resembled Carr was sitting outside the law office in her car when Qalid Abderezak came up to her open window and pointed a handgun at her.
“You are suing the wrong people,” he told the lawyer.
“Do you want to have kids? Do you want to grow old? Then stop suing my friend.”
Abderezak cocked the gun, she said, and demanded her wallet.
“This is your only warning,” he told her before he fled in a white Volvo.
On Sept. 6, Abderezak received a text about needing to finish the job: “We have to go spry up the place cuz we din’t get the right one.”
The “right one,” of course, was Carr. She was sitting in her office on that Friday afternoon just after 5 p.m. when the same gunman parked outside Carr Law in the busy plaza and sprayed the office’s front door with seven bullets. He then drove away in the Volvo.
“Anybody leaving the office could have been shot at any time,” Carr told lawyer K.R. Davidson’s Canadian Justice.
“The scariest part is my receptionist was sitting at the reception desk directly in front of that door. She was right in line of those gunshots.”
The judge said it was a “matter of pure luck” that no one was injured or killed.
Carr had recently installed special glass on the doors.
“The police said that could have saved (the receptionist’s) life because it slowed the bullets down,” she told Davidson.
The following week, they warned her there was still a credible threat against her life.
“You’re not safe and you need to leave,” she was told.
Abderezak, 24 at the time, was arrested after various people — including his brother — identified him from the security video. He eventually pleaded guilty to four charges including robbery using a restricted firearm and intentional discharge of a restricted firearm at the Carr Law office.
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Fuerst sentenced him to 12 years in prison.
“All too often, lawyers work in high conflict and stressful situations. But that work should never put them, or those who work for them, at risk of personal harm,” the judge said. “In this case, a lawyer’s legitimate work did just that.”
Not surprisingly, Abderezak was on bail at the time of the two incidents outside the law office and under condition not to possess a restricted weapon. The gun hasn’t been recovered.
mmandel@postmedia.com
