OTTAWA — Terry Kilrea says he contacted Citizen reporter Gary Dimmock in early December 2006 because someone was trying to “plant a story†that
he’d accepted a payoff to withdraw from the 2006 mayoral race and he wanted to set the record straight. Kilrea offered the explanation Wednesday as his cross-examination continued at the trial of Mayor Larry O’Brien. O’Brien is accused of offering to help Kilrea get an appointment to the National Parole Board if he dropped out of the 2006 race for mayor. Kilrea later did drop out for financial reasons, but says he refused O’Brien’s offer. Defence lawyer Michael Edelson had been focusing his cross-examination on Kilrea’s character and credibility, but shifted gears after Judge Douglas Cunningham suggested he’d spent enough time on “peripheral matters. It’s time to get to the crux of the case.†Edelson asked Kilrea why he had contacted Dimmock, given that Ottawa Sun columnist Sue Sherring had already written two columns about the alleged deal. Kilrea said another Sun reporter “seemed to have many of the details, and his editors killed the story.†Meanwhile, “the stench was still out there,†he said, adding he was “getting sick†of hearing the rumours. “I wanted to clear the air.†He said he called Dimmock, whom he’d met at a hockey game and a charity event, to ask him to get in touch if he heard anything “so rumours don’t get printed.â€
The two subsequently met at Milestones restaurant near the Citizen building, where Kilrea told Dimmock about O’Brien’s alleged offer in July 2006 of up to $30,000 and a parole board appointment if he withdrew from the mayoral contest.