Defence may seek mistrial in Coun. Michael Thompson’s sex assault case

Toronto councillor Michael Thompson and his lawyer Leora Shemesh seen outside a court in Barrie on Thursday, May 8, 2025. (Mike Arsalides/CTV News Barrie)

The lawyer representing Coun. Michael Thompson in his sexual assault trial says there’s a strong chance she may submit an application for a mistrial.

The development comes after Thompson took the stand Thursday in the judge-alone trial to face hours of cross-examination.

Toward the end of the day, Defence lawyer Leora Shemesh expressed strong concerns that the line of questioning pertaining to a witness in the case treated her as a complainant.

“She is not a complainant, she is a witness,” Shemesh said after Crown prosecutor Mareike Newhouse spent much of the day building a case that Thompson had feigned a benevolent interest in the young woman only so that he could “get in her pants.”

Shemesh argued the Crown had made no such argument when the witness took the stand earlier in the trial, and that she had therefore not had an opportunity to defend against it in cross-examination.

Newhouse argued that the questions pertaining to the witness went to Thompson’s credibility.

However the judge ordered a pause in the cross-examination to allow all parties to consider their positions.

Thompson is accused of sexually assaulting two women during a cottage getaway in Muskoka over the Canada Day long weekend in 2022, charges he denies.

Much of the Crown’s cross-examination of Thompson Thursday focused on how he met a young woman he invited to spend the weekend at the cottage and what his purpose was.

The woman is a witness, not one of the complainants.

The court heard Thursday that Thompson met her at a gallery event in Yorkville in 2022, barely two weeks before the cottage getaway.

Thompson said she seemed bright and promising. He learned that she was an undergraduate student at Western University in the same year as his son, so he assumed that she was 23 as well. He later learned that she was 22.

Thompson was around 62 at the time.

“So almost old enough to be her grandfather?” Crown attorney Mareike Newhouse asked.

“Of course, yes, we could say that,” Thompson replied.

“And certainly old enough to be her father?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

Thompson was a deputy mayor and chair of the economic development committee at the time, a portfolio that includes arts and culture.

He said he told the young woman he was a city councillor involved in the cultural sector after she expressed an interest in arts and culture, and introduced her to a woman at the event who worked for a local technology festival.

Guests from the gallery event went to a nearby bar afterwards and the two arranged to meet up there again.

“And you were excited about that?” Newhouse asked.

“I wouldn’t use the term excited. There was no reason to be excited,” Thompson said.

Asked if he thought the young woman was special, he said it wasn’t “unusual or unique” for him to help provide guidance to young Black people to help them navigate “the crazy world of isms, racism and all those things that young people have to go through.”

Leaving the bar in the late hours, Thompson said, he offered the woman a ride home from Yorkville after she indicated that she had come from Richmond Hill by Go Bus and had missed her ride back, despite the fact he himself lived in Scarborough.

“At the time you were familiar with the company, Uber,” Newhouse asked.

“Yes.”

“It didn’t occur to you that she could take an Uber home?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Thompson answered.

He denied telling the young woman that her place was on his way home. He said it wasn’t unusual for him to give rides to males or females.

He said the two discussed her difficulty around finding a job on the way home and the young woman opened up and became sad as she shared details about personal family difficulties.

He said he felt sorry for her and wanted to motivate her, telling her she needed to work hard.

The woman told him that her phone was going to be cut off in a few days and Thompson then gave her two $50 bills, he said. He acknowledged that she never asked him for money.

“You don’t think there was anything inappropriate about giving her money?” Newhouse asked.

“Absolutely not,” Thompson said.

He added that he’s given money to a variety of people over the years.

He said the young woman gave him a kiss and a hug at the end of the car ride, but denied the Crown’s suggestion that he initiated it.

“It didn’t happen, and if it had happened, it wouldn’t have been a good thing,” Thompson said.

Newhouse argued that while Thompson characterized his stance toward the woman as benevolent, he was in fact “trying to get in her pants.”

She suggested a follow-up text where he sent her the agenda for a youth forum he was chairing was meant to impress her.

Thompson replied he “had no need to impress” her.

While Thompson said in court previously that he thought he invited the young woman to the cottage at the last minute, around June 28, or June 29, another text message from her showed she had been invited by June 22.

“I’m going to suggest to you, sir, that you actually brought up the cottage and invited (her) to the cottage the very first night you met her on the car ride home,” Newhouse said.

“Not correct,” Thompson answered.

In another text exchange shown in court, the young woman said she was excited about the upcoming cottage weekend.

Thompson responded saying: “Trying to get a small group of folks to spend a few days unwinding at the cottage (big smile emjoji).”

Newhouse suggested that while the woman had been told the weekend was a networking opportunity that could be helpful to her career, the text was part of a “shifting narrative” about the purpose of the getaway.

“Never expressed that to anyone about the cottage. The cottage was just to go and relax and unwind. That’s what it was all about. It has always been that way,” Thompson said.

If the meeting was indeed a getaway with friends, the Crown asked, then how was it that the young woman who Thompson barely knew was included.

“You had known her for at most five days, right?”

“Yes.”

“She was three times younger than you?

“Okay, yes.”

“And you knew, frankly, not all that much about her, right?”

“Yes.”

“She wasn’t your friend by June 22, was she?”

“I didn’t view her as an enemy. So the two choices I have are friend and enemy. So it’s a friend,” Thompson said.

Thompson said he invited many other people to go as well, including his wife, who he was separated from, and his daughter. But he said they didn’t want to go.

The parties are expected to return to the Barrie, Ont. courtroom on Friday.