Pigeon King case adjourned again

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

A court case involving the owner of a now defunct pigeon breeding scheme is postponed until January.

On Wednesday, at an Ontario Court of Justice in Kitchener, Paul Williams, lawyer for Arlan Galbraith, asked Justice of the Peace A. James Child to adjourn the case until Jan. 18, 2012.

“Considerable pre-trial discussions have been ongoing with the Crown,” Williams explained to the court and noted he was requesting another meeting with the Crown attorney.

Galbraith’s Waterloo-based pigeon breeding scheme involved selling birds to breeders at high prices and buying back the offspring. He handed his business to a bankruptcy trustee in June 2008 and creditors forced him into personal bankruptcy in 2009.

Charges, including fraud over $5,000, were brought against him in December 2010 following a two-year investigation by RCMP and Waterloo Region police. None of the charges have been proven in court.

Galbraith was not in court on Wednesday. He is currently released on bail but there is a publication ban on details of his release.

photo: A no trespassing sign is posted in front of the property where Arlan Galbraith currently lives what neighbours describe as a reclusive existence.

Earlier this year Better Farming located a small cottage where neighbours reported Galbraith living a somewhat reclusive existence, on a very quiet gravel road north of Cochrane, Ont. A view of the structure is obscured from the road by brush. It is protected by a chain across the driveway and in the brush in front of the property is a no trespassing sign. The property stands in stark contrast to the much more luxurious estate a few kilometres west, on the opposite side of the Frederick House river, that Galbraith enjoyed until it was auctioned off by his bankruptcy trustee.

Neighbours report occasional sightings of pigeons in flight that they believe live in newly-constructed hutches adjacent to the cottage. BF