ONTARIO COURT OF JUSTICE
BETWEEN:
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
— AND —
ALTHEA MAXINE REYES
Before Justice Michael Perlin
Heard on August 25, 26, 27 and November 6, 12, 13, 2025, and January 27, 2026
Reasons for Judgment released on January 29, 2026
Hart Shouldice counsel for the Crown
Daniel Howard.................................................................................................... Amicus curiae
The defendant Althea Maxine Reyes................................................... on her own behalf
PERLIN J.:
1On January 17, 2024, a judge asked criminal-defence lawyer Douglas Baum to help Althea Reyes file materials for her Superior-Court bail-review application. Mr. Baum met with Ms. Reyes, who was in custody at the courthouse. He testified that she swore an affidavit, which he commissioned. She gave him another, unsworn, affidavit, in the name of Amanda Thauvette. Mr. Baum filed both affidavits with the Superior Court.
2Both affidavits represented that Ms. Thauvette was Ms. Reyes’ friend who was prepared to act as her residential surety. The Crown alleges these claims are false, and that at the time of the alleged offences, Ms. Reyes and Ms. Thauvette were strangers to one another.
3Based on this allegation, Ms. Reyes is charged with (i) attempting to obstruct justice “by providing false information” in her own affidavit (Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 139(2)), and (ii) using, dealing with or acting on the Thauvette affidavit “as if it were genuine”, while knowing it to be forged (s. 368(1)).
4Ms. Reyes represented herself at trial. In the later stages of the trial, the court was assisted by Daniel Howard, whom I appointed as amicus with a mandate to perform some adversarial functions: see R. v. Kahsai, 2023 SCC 20, at paras. 36, 62.
I. Relevant principles
5An attempt to obstruct justice under s. 139(2) may be established in this case by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Reyes provided false information to the court, knowing that the information tendered was false: See R. v. Shertzer (2015), 2015 ONCA 259, 325 C.C.C. (3d) 202 (Ont. C.A.), leave ref'd 2015 CarswellOnt 16494; R. v. Savinkoff, 1962 554 (BC CA), [1963] 3 C.C.C. 163 (B.C.C.A.); R. v. Charbonneau (1992), 1992 2979 (QC CA), 74 C.C.C. (3d) 49 (Que. C.A.).
6Knowing use of a forged document under s. 368(1) may be established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Reyes knew the Thauvette affidavit was a forgery, and that she attempted to cause any person to act on it as if it were genuine. A “forgery” is a false document made by a person who knew it to be false with intent that it be used as genuine to the prejudice of any other person, or with intent that a person should be induced, by belief that the document is genuine, to do or retrain from doing anything: Criminal Code, s. 366(1). A document is “false” if, inter alia, it purports to be made on behalf of a person “who did not make it or authorize it to be made”: s. 321. See R. v. Drabinsky (2009), 2009 12802 (ON SC), 242 C.C.C. (3d) 449 (Ont. S.C.), at paras. 476-485.
7For both counts, the key factual issues are whether Ms. Reyes was aware of the contents of the affidavits and knew that Ms. Thauvette had not agreed to act as her surety.
II. Brief summary of the evidence
8The Crown’s case can be distilled to the following points.
(a) Mr. Baum testified that on January 17, 2024, he was asked if he could assist Ms. Reyes in filing documents for a bail review. He attended the cells where he met Ms. Reyes. She swore an affidavit before him, which he commissioned. He filed it with the Superior Court. Mr. Baum authenticated an apparent copy of that affidavit, which became an exhibit at trial. Mr. Baum testified that it was an accurate copy. In the affidavit, Ms. Reyes represented that Ms. Thauvette was her friend, who was willing to act as her residential surety.
(b) On January 17, Mr. Baum had also filed with the court an unsworn surety affidavit purportedly from Ms. Thauvette, which also claimed Ms. Thauvette was Ms. Reyes’ friend and was prepared to act as her surety.1
(c) Ms. Thauvette testified that at the time the affidavits were filed in January 2024, she had never met or spoken with Ms. Reyes and did not intend to act as her surety.
9Ms. Reyes testified in her own defence that she had met Ms. Thauvette in the summer of 2021, while in Cornwall, where Ms. Thauvette lived. Ms. Reyes, who lived in Ottawa, had gotten a ride from a friend to Cornwall to work that day as a dog walker. Ms. Reyes testified that she worked for a “pet company”. While she was out walking three dogs, she met Ms. Thauvette randomly. They had a 10-to-15-minute interaction, talking about “life, and the dogs, and our love of dogs, and family”. They exchanged phone numbers. After this meeting, they became friends and spoke regularly. Ms. Reyes testified she would call Ms. Thauvette about her “pet status” and Ms. Thauvette’s dog. They would speak about once every three weeks or once a month. They continued speaking regularly after Ms. Reyes was incarcerated in the fall of 2023. When preparing for her bail review in early 2024, Ms. Reyes contacted Ms. Thauvette, who advised she was willing to act as a surety if Ms. Reyes had no other options. The last time Ms. Reyes spoke with Ms. Thauvette was two days before her February 5, 2024, bail-review appearance. (The affidavits had been filed with the court on January 17, 2024.) After that, she and her counsel were unable to reach Ms. Thauvette, who did not attend court on February 5.2
III. Analysis
A. Knowledge of the contents of the affidavit
10I accept Mr. Baum’s evidence that he met with Ms. Reyes, received two affidavits from her (one of which he commissioned), and filed them with the Superior Court. It is reasonable to infer that he did so at her request. None of these facts were seriously challenged in cross examination, which largely focussed on how the affidavits might have come into existence – a subject of which Ms. Baum had no direct knowledge.
11I am satisfied that Ms. Reyes knew the affidavits proposed Ms. Thauvette as her surety. Although it is unclear how the affidavits were generated, the evidence strongly suggests that Ms. Reyes provided information that was incorporated into the affidavits. The affidavits contain apparently inaccurate personal information regarding Ms. Thauvette that was also provided by Ms. Reyes to the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre for her visitor list. Further, Ms. Reyes testified she provided Ms. Thauvette’s name to a lawyer as a potential surety. Finally, as the Crown notes, Ms. Reyes was representing herself on the bail review. It is inconceivable that she would have been unaware of the contents of the two affidavits that she directed Mr. Baum to file in support of the application, which she intended to argue on her own behalf.
B. Knowledge that the affidavits fraudulently claimed Ms. Thauvette was prepared to act as a surety
12Ms. Thauvette testified that at the time the affidavits were filed, she had never met Ms. Reyes. The Crown asks me to reject Ms. Reyes’ evidence, accept Ms. Thauvette’s evidence and infer from it that Ms. Reyes could not have believed that Ms. Thauvette, a complete stranger, was willing to act as her surety. Ms. Reyes testified in her own defence that she knew Ms. Thauvette and understood Ms. Thauvette was prepared to act as her surety. The defence asks me to accept Ms. Reyes’ testimony or be left in doubt by it.
13In addressing this conflicting evidence, I am mindful that Ms. Reyes has no burden to prove that Ms. Thauvette was willing to act as her surety or that she believed Ms. Thauvette was willing to do so. Ms. Reyes enjoys the presumption of innocence, which will be displaced, resulting in a finding of guilt for an offence, only if the Crown proves each essential element of that offence beyond a reasonable doubt. I must not resolve the factual disputes in this case simply by selecting which version of events I prefer. I must analyze the evidence using the Supreme Court’s framework from R. v. W.(D.), 1991 93 (SCC), [1991] 1 S.C.R. 742, at p. 758, which explains that if I believe the evidence favouring the defence, I must acquit; even if I do not believe the evidence favouring the defence, if I am left in reasonable doubt by it, I must acquit; and if I do not believe and am not left in doubt by evidence favouring the defence, I may only find Ms. Reyes guilty of an offence if, on the basis of the evidence that I do accept, I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt by that evidence that Ms. Reyes is guilty of the offence. The W.(D.) framework applies not only to evidence of Ms. Reyes (i.e., her evidence that she believed Ms. Thauvette was prepared to act as her surety), but also other evidence favourable to the defence arising from defence witnesses or from any part of the Crown’s case: R. v. Marki, 2021 ONCA 83, at para. 23.
1 Ms. Reyes’ evidence
14Three factors lead me to reject Ms. Reyes’ evidence and find that it does not raise a reasonable doubt.
15First, Ms. Reyes’ evidence is inconsistent in material ways with Mr. Baum’s evidence, which I accept. She testified that she did not give the Thauvette affidavit to Mr. Baum to file; he testified she had given him that affidavit. Further, she testified that she had signed approximately three affidavits, each one referring to a different surety; Mr. Baum testified he filed two documents with the court for Ms. Reyes on January 17, 2024: one affidavit signed by Ms. Reyes, and the unsworn Thauvette affidavit.
16Second, aspects of Ms. Reyes’ evidence were implausible. It is hard to believe that in the context of the casual relationship that she described, Ms. Thauvette would have been willing to allow Ms. Reyes into move into her home in Cornwall pursuant to a surety release. Ms. Reyes’ evidence that she did not know she had signed the affidavit proposing Ms. Thauvette as a surety defies belief: as noted before, she must have known the contents of the two affidavits. I reject Ms. Reyes’ evidence that she did not ask Mr. Baum to file the affidavits, and that he just told her he was going to file them. It is inconceivable that Mr. Baum—who was not acting as Ms. Reyes’ lawyer on the bail review—would have attended the cells, commissioned an affidavit and filed the two affidavits with the court unless Ms. Reyes had given him some indication that this is what she wished.
17Finally, Ms. Reyes has a criminal record with numerous prior convictions for crimes of dishonesty and against the administration of justice: e.g. fabricating evidence in 2013; attempting to obstruct justice in 2019 and 2025; 19 fraud-related offences in 2024; failing to attend court in 2016 and 2019; and flight from police and driving while disqualified in 2025. Her persistent dishonest behaviour weighs heavily against her credibility. See e.g. R. v. King, 2022 ONCA 665, at paras. 138-140. That said, I will not use Ms. Reyes’ prior crimes of dishonesty as evidence that Ms. Reyes is the kind of person who would have committed the offences before the court.
2 Other defence evidence does not raise a reasonable doubt
18Ms. Reyes called three witnesses from OCDC to establish she would not have been able to draft and print the affidavits while incarcerated. I accept it would have been difficult—perhaps impossible—for Ms. Reyes to personally draft and print copies of the affidavits. However, this fact does not raise a reasonable doubt in my mind. I agree with the Crown that how the affidavits came into existence is peripheral to the live matters in dispute. Neither count depends on Ms. Reyes having personally created the affidavits.
19Ms. Reyes also adduced evidence that Ms. Thauvette is listed as a potential visitor in Ms. Reyes’ OCDC visitor list. The name is on the list because Ms. Reyes added it. Ms. Reyes contends this evidence is proof of a prior relationship with Ms. Thauvette. The Crown contends that this evidence shows that Ms. Reyes added Ms. Thauvette’s name to generate evidence to support her defence at trial.
20I cannot accept either submission. The inferences the Crown and defence request cannot be drawn from the simple fact that Ms. Reyes added Ms. Thauvette’s name to the list. This fact could help the defence, but only if it could also be shown that Ms. Reyes added the name before she allegedly embarked on a scheme to fraudulently put Ms. Thauvette forward as a surety. There is no evidence of when Ms. Reyes added Ms. Thauvette’s name.3 As it stands, the addition of Ms. Thauvette’s name is, in essence, a prior-consistent statement by Ms. Reyes, claiming a relationship with Ms. Thauvette: it does not make her trial testimony more credible; and it does not rebut the allegation that her trial testimony was recently fabricated, because it cannot be said to have occurred before the alleged motive to fabricate existed. The evidence also does not support the Crown’s submission, which is based on an assumption, for which there is no evidence, that Ms. Reyes added Ms. Thauvette’s name “after the fact”. Even if there were evidence that the name was added after the offence, the addition of Ms. Thauvette’s name could have innocent explanations, which I cannot discount without more evidence.
3 Ms. Thauvette’s evidence
21The Crown’s case rests on inferences the Crown asks me to draw from a factual finding that Ms. Thauvette and Ms. Reyes were strangers at the time of the alleged offences. The only direct evidence that Ms. Thauvette and Ms. Reyes were strangers came from Ms. Thauvette herself. Her credibility is a critical issue. As the Crown fairly acknowledged, however, Ms. Thauvette’s credibility was undermined at trial.
22I am satisfied that Ms. Thauvette was less than forthright during her testimony. Early in the trial, the Crown had sought to adjourn the proceedings on the basis that Ms. Thauvette was unavailable, attending to her daughter in hospital after a car accident. The Crown tendered a text message from Ms. Thauvette apologizing for and explaining her inability to attend court:
I’m extremely sorry I was in a car accident and I had my 8-year-old daughter with me and we are currently trying to get her up to par or stay in. The hospital hasn’t been great. We’re still not home. I’m all over the place. I’m sorry I’m unable to contact you today. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring my daughter home. It’s been 4 days in the hospital.
23The trial resumed in November with Ms. Thauvette’s evidence, which she provided from her home via Zoom. In cross-examination, she testified the car accident had led her and her daughter to spend just 35 minutes at the hospital.
24Ms. Thauvette was confronted with the contradiction between her testimony and text message. In response, she first offered that they had not been at the hospital for four days, but “we had to check on her for four days for the concussion and return to the doctor’s office”. Then, when confronted with her prior statement, “[i]t’s been 4 days in the hospital”, she offered, “well, it must have been talk to text, and I must have miscommunicated and didn’t proofread it before I sent it”. Later, she came closer to acknowledging the obvious inconsistency by offering that she had been “in a state where I was not thinking clearly and [was] very upset” and some words may have been “jumbled” and did not reflect “exactly what I meant to say”.
25I do not accept these explanations. The meaning of Ms. Thauvette’s text message was clear: she claimed she had been in the hospital with her daughter for four days. In court, she testified she had spent only 35 minutes there. I am satisfied that Ms. Thauvette exaggerated the extent of her daughter’s medical issues in her text message to the Crown to justify, or avoid the consequences of, her failure to comply with her obligation to attend court. I accept that Ms. Thauvette and her daughter were in a car accident. I have no doubt that this must have been a stressful time for Ms. Thauvette. Rather than being honest about her situation, she chose to mislead the Crown, providing information that was relied on in court as a basis to adjourn the trial from August to November of 2025.
26I am also satisfied that Ms. Thauvette misled the court in trying to explain away the obvious inconsistency between her text message and her testimony.
27I would add that throughout Ms. Thauvette’s testimony, she projected a cavalier attitude towards the court process, which led me to question whether she saw testifying as a duty she was obliged to approach with care and candour. It was clear that she found testifying to be an inconvenience that she resented.
28Finally, I note that Ms. Thauvette, during cross examination by Ms. Reyes, at times became agitated and raised her voice in anger. That said, I do not see this as a significant factor bearing on her credibility. Ms. Thauvette’s evident animus toward Ms. Reyes could perhaps be explained by her anger for having been dragged into the court process or in response to the fact that Ms. Reyes repeatedly confronted Ms. Thauvette with allegations that Ms. Thauvette reasonably found offensive.
4 Other evidence potentially favouring the Crown
29The Crown, Mr. Shouldice, fairly acknowledges Ms. Thauvette’s credibility problems. He urges me to rely on various other evidence, which he says supports an inference that Ms. Reyes is guilty of the offences charged.
30As I have noted, Mr. Shouldice pointed to the addition of Ms. Thauvette’s name to Ms. Reyes’ OCDC visitor list. I have already noted that I cannot infer from the fact that Ms. Reyes added Ms. Thauvette’s name that she did so in furtherance of a scheme to deceive the court.
31Mr. Shouldice also notes that some of the personal information regarding Ms. Thauvette in the two affidavits is incorrect, though very similar to her true personal information. He argues this supports an inference that the affidavits were fraudulent. The personal information provided in the affidavits is also very similar to the information Ms. Reyes provided regarding Ms. Thauvette for her OCDC visitor list. The similarities between the inaccurate information found in the affidavits and OCDC visitor list suggest that Ms. Reyes provided the information contained in each document.
32I do not accept that the inaccuracies in the affidavit permit an inference that the affidavits are fraudulent. Clearly, Ms. Reyes got the information from somewhere. It is too similar to Ms. Thauvette’s true personal information to have been pulled from thin air. There could be innocent and incriminatory reasons for the documents to contain inaccurate information: perhaps the person who gave Ms. Reyes the information misstated it; perhaps Ms. Reyes wrote the information down incorrectly when she received it from someone; perhaps she made errors when conveying it to whomever prepared the affidavit; perhaps she varied it deliberately from the true information in order to make it more difficult for the surety affidavit to be challenged. I cannot say.
33Mr. Shouldice notes that Ms. Reyes testified she had spoken to Ms. Thauvette from OCDC about five or six times leading up to her bail review in February 2024. Scott Munro from OCDC testified that the phone number for Ms. Thauvette on Ms. Reyes’ visitor list had not been called from any phone in any Ontario correctional institution between January 1, 2024, and November 2025. The Crown submits that the phone calls Ms. Reyes described did not occur, and that this is further evidence of fabrication. However, there is other evidence suggesting Ms. Reyes must have used a different phone number in an attempt to reach Ms. Thauvette. Ms. Thauvette testified that Ms. Reyes had tried to speak with her several times on the phone, using the phone card of Ms. Thauvette’s daughter, who was incarcerated with Ms. Reyes at the time.
IV. Disposition
34Both charges depend on proof that Ms. Reyes knew Ms. Thauvette was not willing to act as Ms. Reyes’ surety. To find Ms. Reyes guilty, I would need to believe Ms. Thauvette’s evidence that she had not agreed to act as Ms. Reyes’ surety and infer from that fact that Ms. Reyes knew the affidavits were fraudulent. The chain of reasoning would proceed as follows: in the absence of any other explanation for the contents of the affidavits, a finding that Ms. Reyes and Ms. Thauvette were strangers to one another would permit an inference that Ms. Reyes could not have believed that Ms. Thauvette was prepared to act as her surety. It would flow from this conclusion that, when she provided Ms. Thauvette’s information for inclusion in the affidavits, she knowingly provided false information with intent that it be incorporated into the affidavits, which she arranged to be filed with intent that the Superior Court act upon the fraudulent information as though it were genuine.
35The fundamental building block for this chain of reasoning is the credibility of Ms. Thauvette’s claim that she and Ms. Reyes were strangers. Having considered all the evidence and submissions, I have reasonable doubt, arising from the fact that Ms. Thauvette’s credibility was severely compromised. It appears that Ms. Thauvette exaggerated her daughter’s medical situation in a text message to the Crown apparently designed to avoid her having to comply with her obligation to testify. When confronted in court with the inconsistency between her evidence and text message, she offered various highly implausible explanations, apparently designed to avoid acknowledging her prior conduct. This sequence of events fundamentally undermined my ability to take anything Ms. Thauvette said at face value. I cannot find she was being truthful with the court. I cannot rely on her evidence as, in essence, the sole foundation for a criminal finding of guilt, which must be premised on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
36As a result, Ms. Reyes will be found not guilty of both charges.
37I thank Mr. Shouldice and Mr. Howard for their diligent work and professionalism during this trial.
Released: January 29, 2026
Signed: Justice Michael Perlin
Footnotes
- Although Mr. Baum did not carefully review the surety affidavit when he first saw it in January 2024, as it was not being sworn before him, at trial, he had a high degree of confidence that a document that became an exhibit was an accurate copy of the unsworn affidavit Ms. Reyes had given him. A transcript of bail-review proceedings in the Superior Court on February 5, 2025, shows that an affidavit in Ms. Thauvette’s name was indeed before the court at that appearance.
- Ms. Reyes’ narrative was not put to Ms. Thauvette when she testified. Curiously, during her cross-examination of Ms. Thauvette, Ms. Reyes put to her a completely different version of events. Ms. Thauvette rejected Ms. Reyes’ suggestion that they had met through Ms. Thauvette’s daughter and that Ms. Thauvette had been under the influence of drugs at the time. The unadopted suggestion put to Ms. Thauvette is not evidence.
- On January 27, 2026, two days before this judgment is scheduled to be delivered, Ms. Reyes brought a motion to reopen her defence to call evidence of when Ms. Reyes requested that Ms. Thauvette’s name be added. The Crown opposed this motion. I dismissed the motion, having considered the test for reopening from R. v. Hayward (1993), 1993 14679 (ON CA), 86 C.C.C. (3d) 193 (Ont. C.A.). Ms. Reyes wished to lead evidence to prove that she made the request on January 17, 2024, the same date that she allegedly met with Mr. Baum to swear her affidavit. In my view, the evidence could not have assisted the defence. Even assuming the request to add Ms. Thauvette’s name was made earlier on the same day that the affidavits were filed, it does not further the defence in any material way, as it could not show Ms. Reyes had an interest in contacting Ms. Thauvette that existed truly independently of the events subject to the charges. If the evidence had been admitted, it would not have led me to conclude that the visitor list assisted the defence or raised a reasonable doubt. As the motion to reopen was dismissed, I have not considered the proposed evidence in reaching my decision in this trial.