No Crown disclosure for former Acadia prof Rick Mehta because of intention to publish it online

When former Acadia University professor Rick Mehta left Kentville provincial court this week, he did so with return dates on charges against him of uttering threats toward people at Acadia in August and breaching his release condition on those charges this fall.

What he didn’t leave with was Crown disclosure of the cases against him.

While an accused or their lawyer normally gets a copy of the disclosure documents to help decide how to proceed with the case, that hasn’t yet happened with Mehta, who as of Tuesday was representing himself.

“Mr. Mehta is entitled to receive full disclosure of the information the Crown is relying on as part of the investigation on the separate files,” Crown attorney Dan Rideout told Judge Chris Manning. “The Crown in any normal course, even if somebody is self-represented, with an undertaking, (will) provide a physical copy over to a self-represented accused.”

The exception would be multimedia files, for which an opportunity to view those files is offered. The undertaking is to make sure that witnesses are not subject to intimidation, or that disclosure information is not published on social media.

Mehta has delivered a large package of material to the Crown already, Rideout said, “but our concern is that in the letter that accompanies this material he, in addition to requesting disclosure, indicates that ‘as a heads up I thought I should inform your service and the court that I plan on uploading the  summary and disclosure documents to a website so that the public can scrutinize these documents for themselves.’”

Rideout said that as a result of that statement and others in materials provided by Mehta, “the Crown is concerned about provided disclosure in a manner that we normally would, and we are of the view that any material provided to Mr. Mehta would have to be viewed in a controlled manner.”

He said that would have to happen at an RCMP office.

Manning accepted that position, and told Mehta if he wanted to have access to the disclosure in any other way, that he would have to make an application to the court. Mehta did not state any opposition to Rideout’s position.

Mehta, 52, was charged in August with three counts of uttering threats. Earlier this month, he was charged with four counts of failing to comply with his release conditions by contacting people at Acadia in September and November. Mehta was a professor at Acadia from 2003 until he was fired on Aug. 13, 2018. The university cited a wide variety of complaints against him, including unprofessional conduct, breach of privacy, and harassment and intimidation of students and employees.

He is now free on $1,000 bail with orders to not contact several people and to stay away from the Acadia campus.