Former Acadia prof facing threat charges arrested again for violating release conditions

A former Acadia University professor charged with threatening an employee of the Valley institution has been charged again with violating his release conditions.

Rick Mehta, 52, was originally charged in August 2023 with three counts of uttering threats for two separate incidents on August 5 and 10.

In November, he was charged with four counts of failing to comply with his release conditions for allegedly sending documents to someone at Acadia on September 26 and contacting two people on November 2 and another on November 15.

He spent a night in jail after the Crown successfully applied to revoke the police undertaking that had freed him after his initial arrest. It was replaced with cash bail and conditions on November 21.

But police now allege that Mehta violated his bail conditions several times in December and January.

He faces 10 new breach charges covering those incidents between December 10 and January 8. The charges were sworn on January 4 and 8.

Mehta spent about a week in jail on the new charges before being released Tuesday with a surety.

Police allege that he had contact with the university or its employees by tagging or contacting them on social media, leaving a phone message, sending emails, and sending a registered letter.

Besides being under an order to not contact people at the university, he has also been ordered to stay off the campus.

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.

Acadia told Mehta that his termination happened because he wouldn’t acknowledge wrongdoing, take responsibility for his actions, or commit to changes in how he taught and how he interacted with students and other staff.

He is scheduled to return to court next month.