Toronto businessman Harold Peerenboom.ANDREW INNERARITY
Toronto businessman Harold Peerenboom has won a legal battle to obtain the private e-mails of Isaac Perlmutter, the publicity-shy billionaire chief executive officer of the Marvel Entertainment empire who was last photographed in 1985.
The legal soap opera involves high-priced lawyers and private detectives and could result in a defamation-suit settlement as high as $400-million.
At issue is a dispute over Mr. Perlmutter's favourite tennis instructor at an exclusive compound in Palm Beach, Fla., where both men spend the winters. Mr. Peerenboom wanted tennis instructor Karen D. Donnelly's contract to be open to competitive bids.
Soon after, neighbours in the Sloan's Curve gated community began receiving hate mail letters falsely accusing Mr. Peereboom, who owns the international consulting firm Mandrake, of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy at knifepoint and killing a local couple.
Mr. Peerenboom subpoenaed records from New York-based Marvel Entertainment that he believes will show the 73-year-old Mr. Perlmutter had launched the vicious hate-mail campaign, falsely accusing him of murder and child molestation to put pressure on him to leave the community.
New York Supreme Court Justice Nancy Bannon recently ruled that Mr. Perlmutter had waived the right to privacy because he sent e-mails on the Marvel server.
Walt Disney Co., which owns Marvel and its lucrative franchises, such as Iron Man and Captain America, has a computer policy that prohibits personal and other objectional use of Marvel's server and e-mail system, the judge said in her Sept. 30 ruling.
"Perlmutter was or should have been aware, as Marvel's chairman or CEO, that Marvel implemented Disney's use and monitoring policies," Justice Bannon wrote. "… Perlmutter did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in connection with electronic messages sent and received on Marvel's server, and has waived the attorney-client and work-product privileges in connection with them."
The court ruled that Mr. Peerenboom's legal team, headed by Marc Kasowitz, who also represents Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, can have access to e-mails made by any Marvel employee working for Mr. Perlmutter, including his accountant. The only exception is his wife, Laura, who the judge said would not necessarily be aware of the Disney-Marvel server policy.
"We are gratified by the court's well-reasoned decision. Mr. Peerenboom looks forward to presenting the evidence in this case to a jury and vindicating his reputation," Mr. Kasowtiz said in a statement to The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Kasowitz said recent discovery proceedings show that Marvel Entertainment resources were used in "carrying out his [Mr. Perlmutter's] vicious anonymous hate-mail campaign against Harold Peerenboom."
A spokeswoman for Mr. Perlmutter, who is represented by famed Miami lawyer Roy Black, expressed deep concern about the court judgment.
"While it doesn't change the fact that there is no evidence to support Mr. Peerenboom's baseless lawsuit, we believe this decision sets a dangerous precedent and is contrary to law, and we intend to seek further review," Brandy Bergman said in a statement to The Globe.
"The attorney-client privilege and other privileges addressed in the court's decision are sacrosanct legal principles that should not be so significantly eroded, especially on behalf of Harold Peerenboom, a serial litigant who was recently found by a Florida court to have illegally collected and tested the Perlmutters' DNA and lied about it in his testimony."
The hate-mail campaign, which included more than 1,000 letters, was directed at members of the Palm Beach community where the two men live, inmates at federal and state penitentiaries, and business associates and friends of Mr. Peerenboom in Canada. Some of the letters were reported to be on his stationery. The letters alleged he was a child molester and killer. Other letters stated Mr. Pereenboom believed in Hitler's Final Solution and wanted to attack Jewish neighbours, including Mr. Perlmutter, an Israeli American.
The Perlmutters deny that they had anything to do with the slanderous letters and argue that Mr. Peerenboom is a serial litigator, seeking to shake them down for millions of dollars.
The litigation includes DNA evidence allegedly collected from one of the hate letters that match DNA on a water bottle that Laura Perlmutter left in court when her husband was deposed on Feb. 27, 2013. Mr. Peerenboom paid a private lab to conduct tests, which allegedly showed a 97.6 per cent possibility that the DNA came from Ms. Perlmutter.
A Florida judge ruled in July that Mr. Peerenboom and his previous lawyer, William Douberly, "acted fraudulently" to obtain the DNA and released the results without the consent of the Perlmutters. The court also found that Mr. Douberly could no longer claim attorney-client privilege and would now face cross-examination by Mr. Perlmutter's lawyers in the litigation still before the courts. He must answer 16 questions related to the DNA collection, something he refused to do when he claimed attorney-client privilege.
Mr. Perlmutter's legal team alleges in the lawsuit that Mr. Peerenboom attempted to carry out an "international conspiracy to surreptitiously and illegally collect, analyze and disclose the Perlmutters' genetic information in violation of Florida statutory and common law, in an effort to defame the Perlmutters by falsely implicating them in criminal conduct."
Robert Fife