By Jacques Gallant of The Star
A veteran Crown attorney is being accused of berating a Toronto police officer while suggesting he should have given “false evidence” on the stand.
The explosive allegation involves a tense encounter between prosecutor Marnie Goldenberg and Const. Edin Hasanbasic in January, during which she admonished the officer in the hallway of the Toronto provincial courthouse at 10 Armoury St. — within earshot of several witnesses — about his testimony at the trial of a man accused of intentionally hitting another officer with a motorcycle.
Hasanbasic, who was called as a witness by the defence, had just told the court it didn’t look like a head-on collision and that the other officer “seemed like he was fine” and was not seriously injured; it was testimony that risked hurting the Crown’s case.
In his notes about the hallway encounter, Hasanbasic wrote that the prosecutor was yelling and swearing about his testimony.
He wrote that he told Goldenberg, “What am I supposed to do? Lie?”
“She responded with, ‘We protect our own,’” he wrote.
Goldenberg, a prosecutor of 22 years whose husband is a police officer, has acknowledged she confronted Hasanbasic, but adamantly denies saying those words — “Police officers are not my own, and it is not my job to protect them.”
He wrote that Goldenberg said her husband is a cop, and twice told him, “we protect our own,” including after he asked if he was supposed to lie. He then returned to a meeting room, telling (defence lawyer) Jamshidi and another officer, “The Crown just tore me a new one for being honest.”
He then overheard her say: “You’re a young copper and you have many years ahead of you. If you continue this way, you won’t have a lengthy or easy career.”
When Goldenberg took the stand (on a stay application), it was the second time this month that the longtime Crown attorney found herself in the witness box — she also testified just last week as the victim in an antisemitic threat trial, in which the accused woman was convicted.
While Hasanbasic testified that Young wasn’t seriously injured, since he finished his shift, Goldenberg said she told him in the hallway that’s because Young is a “38-year copper and that’s what they do,” going on to say that her husband is a “37-year copper” and would have also completed his shift.
Goldenberg became emotional on the stand, explaining that after raising the sergeant’s injury to Hasanbasic, she suddenly pictured her husband, who had had heart surgery a few years earlier, lying on a hospital bed. She said she also told Hasanbasic that she was becoming emotional, and ended the conversation by walking to the elevator.
