Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Pigeon King’s his own lawyer



Kitchener - Arlan Galbraith, better known as the Pigeon King, told Justice G. Hearn here Monday that he is going to be his own lawyer to face one charge of fraud and four charges of violating the Bankruptcy Act .
His lawyer, Paul Williams, said there has been a breakdown with Galbraith.

Galbraith has seldom come to Kitchener, leaving it to Williams to handle court appearances. On Monday Williams and Crown Attorney Lynn Robinson were prepared to tell Hearn how they intend to proceed with the case, including a preliminary hearing and trial.

Now that has been delayed three weeks to March 19 and Hearn urged Galbraith to retain a lawyer because it’s likely to be a long and difficult trial.

Galbraith answered that it would take too long to brief a new lawyer in a case that involves more than 600,000 documents. He said he intends to seek a preliminary hearing and a jury trial.

He is accused to luring more than 1,000 investors into contracts worth more than $20 million to produce breeding stock. Officials in Iowa put a stop to his sales there, describing it as a Ponzi scheme, meaning investors could only earn profits on the contracts if Galbraith and his Pigeon King International Inc. were able to find a steady stream of new investors so their money could be used to pay previous investors.

Galbraith threw his company into bankruptcy on June, 2008,  and the next year some investors who had signed contracts with Galbraith before he set up the company petitioned him into personal bankruptcy.