by DAVE PINK
Arlan Galbraith – on trial for fraud in connection with the financial collapse of Pigeon King International – stopped inches short of accusing a former client of betrayal in Kitchener Superior Court today.
“Are you aware that you are a prime example of a two-faced fairweather friend who would stab me in the back when things don’t go your way?” he said to former pigeon keeper Christina Bults during cross examination.
“That’s not much of a question, Mr. Galbraith,” interjected Judge G.E. Taylor.
Galbraith has chosen not to hire a lawyer and is representing himself. He is facing one Criminal Code charge of defrauding investors of more than $1 million. He’s also facing four more charges under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act in connection with the alleged fraud.
Galbraith’s cross examination of Bults continued for over an hour, with questions phrased as statements to defend his belief in the long-term potential success of his pigeon supply business.
Galbraith said Bults turned against him when her pigeon business started to go bad.
“What a dumb question,” said Bults. “I did not turn against you.
“I’m sitting here telling the honest truth. Where that takes you is not my problem.”
Bults said her family remains $86,000 in debt because of her involvement with Pigeon King. "We'll be cash-strapped for the next seven years."
Galbraith said Bults might have done better financially if she hadn’t spent $15,000 on her daughter’s wedding.
“Yeah, that was pretty frivolous of me,” said Bults.
Galbraith continued. “Can you explain the difference between these two statements: There is a big market for cars in Brazil, and Ford has a big market for cars in Brazil?”
“What does that have to do with why I’m here,” answered Bults. “You said you had contracts in Saudi Arabia. I asked to see those contracts. You said no.”
And when the business appeared to be failing, Galbraith asked Bults if she remembered confronting him at his Waterloo office wearing “short shorts and a tank top.”
Galbraith insisted that he never guaranteed a profit to the people who agreed to buy his breeding pairs of pigeons and sell the offspring back to him. In his questions to Bults, he insisted he only ever promised a market and a set price for the young pigeons.
“You sat in my kitchen and said you had a market,” Bults countered. “Why would I question that. “
And after the bankruptcy, “We did go to sell the birds,” she said. “But there was no market for them. Nothing.”
Earlier, during examination in chief by Crown attorney Lynn Robinson, Bults said she took an interest in Pigeon King International after reading an ad in the Wellington Advertiser early in 2005 and thought pigeons would be an ideal complement to the family’s Drayton-area hog business. Galbraith, she said, “came to the house dressed in overalls. He looked like a farmer, and that was OK with us.”
They shook hands on a 10-year deal.
So she borrowed $125,000 from the Farm Credit Corporation to convert one of the barns and took delivery of 350 breeding pairs of “sporting” pigeons – at $165 a pair – on May 3, 2005, with a promise from Galbraith that he would buy back the offspring at $25 apiece.
She studied up on pigeons using the Internet. And things went very well that first year, she said.
Then disease set in after a new pair of breeding pigeons was introduced to the barn, and the birds started getting sick and dying.
And then, there were some comments made by Galbraith in his regular Pigeon Post newsletter to the growers that sent up some “red flags.”
Initially, Galbraith insisted that all of the birds be banded so that they could be exported. Then he discontinued the practice. Bults testified that Galbraith said the plastic bands on the birds’ legs were being seized by U.S. Customs because they were being used “to make bombs.”
“I didn’t know what to say back, but I thought it was quite odd,” she said.
Galbraith advised against taking sick and dead birds to an independent lab for analysis, and he counselled his growers to avoid bankers who made negative comments about the pigeon business. All the while, Bults said Galbraith insisted that the pigeon business was good and getting better, and that the only thing they had to worry about was “fear mongerers.”
“That included anyone who had a negative attitude to what we were doing; that they had hidden agendas, were malicious people, underhanded, and not trustworthy people.”
Initially, Bults testified, she understood that she was raising “sporting” pigeons. Then, in 2007, Galbraith started to refer to the pigeons as squabs, or meat birds.
“He said they were a dual purpose pigeon, for flying and for eating,” she said.
“That can’t be true. A squab is as big as a chicken. The birds we had could fit in your hand.”
The trial is expected to last another five to seven weeks. BF
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