FULL CIRCLE: Di Biase resigns amid sexual harassment allegations
Veteran councillor allegedly sexually harassed a city employee over the course of 5 months

YorkRegion.com
Dec. 28, 2017
Adam Martin-Robbins

The biggest story I covered in 2017, far-and-away, was the breaking news piece about the sexual harassment allegations that toppled Vaughan’s deputy mayor, Michael Di Biase.

And the speed at which it unfolded took me, and many other politics watchers, by surprise.

Di Biase, a veteran politician who served on council for nearly three decades including a stint as mayor, was no stranger to controversy during his time in office.But he’d had a particularly rocky couple of years leading up to 2017.

In 2015, Integrity Commissioner Suzanne Craig found Di Biase used intimidation and abusive language to pressure staff who opposed his interference in the city’s tendering process and his efforts to secure municipal projects for a local contracting company.

He was docked 90-days pay and there was an immediate outcry from residents calling for his resignation.

Di Biase launched a legal challenge to try and quash the integrity commissioner’s findings and overturn the penalty. But in a decision handed down in September 2016, the divisional court sided with Craig.   

Following the integrity commissioner’s findings, police launched a probe digging into city contracts signed during Di Biase’s tenure, including his time in the mayor’s chair from 2002 to 2006 and, more recently, while he was a local and regional councillor.

That investigation is ongoing, an OPP spokesperson confirmed earlier this month.

By the end of 2016, I heard rumblings Di Biase was facing more troubling allegations.

Over the next few months, I learned the integrity commissioner was looking into at least two separate complaints about Di Biase’s conduct.

One complaint, I was told, centred on allegations Di Biase improperly used his influence to help a developer seeking to build homes on an environmentally sensitive parcel of land.

The other complaint was rumoured to involve allegations of sexual harassment.

While I was working to confirm this, I found out Craig was slated to release a report on her findings in one of those two complaints sometime in May.

A couple of weeks later, I was tipped off that Craig’s report was being released online May 18.

I arrived at the office around 8 a.m. that day and sat at my desk, eyes glued to my computer screen, as I constantly refreshed the city’s website.

After about an hour, the link finally popped up.

I carefully read through Craig’s report.

It laid out, often graphically, the allegations against Di Biase, which he has denied and have not been tested in court.

 “In each case, the respondent is alleged to have kissed the mouth of the complainant, without her consent and despite her objections. In four cases, the respondent also touched her breasts,” Craig wrote. “In addition to these five incidents, the complainant alleges that this pattern of conduct was repeated a further five or six times and occurred in the same period.”

Craig found that even after Di Biase was told “his sexual advances were unwelcome and unwanted,” he “did not cease his unwelcome conduct.”

The report contains excerpts from phone conversations the complainant had with Di Biase, which she recorded.

One of those conversations was reportedly recorded a day after one of the alleged instances of harassment.

Craig’s report contains the following excerpt from the recording:

Di Biase: I am there for you.

Complainant: Then why would you touch my breasts and kiss me and put your tongue in my mouth right after that, when I am so visibly upset.

Di Biase: I didn’t put my tongue in your mouth … I tried … but you said no.

Following that excerpt Craig wrote:

“I take note of the respondent’s acknowledgement of the events, a lack of emphatic denial and the cavalier way he responded to the complainant’s accusations, saying, ‘If you want to touch my breasts you can. ... I give you permission, how is that?’”

As a result of the alleged harassment, which reportedly took place over five months, the complainant left her job, Craig noted.

Di Biase “categorically” denied sexually assaulting or sexually harassing the complainant, rather “he often expressed non-sexual expressions of affection toward the complainant,” the report says.

Furthermore, Di Biase said, “he has been the victim of entrapment.”

Once I’d finished reading the report, I tried, unsuccessfully, to reach Di Biase and Craig for comment then quickly typed out a story.

Shortly after we published it online, The Star posted my story to its website.

Then the other major media outlets pounced.

A couple of hours later, Di Biase issued a statement through his lawyer steadfastly denying the allegations, but also announcing his resignation.

 “While I have throughout maintained my innocence, I do not wish to be a distraction from the important work that is ahead for our council in protecting the interests of this city,” he said in the statement.

And with that, the decades-long career of a controversial veteran Vaughan councillor abruptly ended.