vancouver mayor ken sim launches defamation lawsuit against former chief of staff and local businessman
the mayor's lawsuit alleges his former chief of staff and a vancouver businessman both displayed "a wanton and flagrant disregard for the plaintiff's rights" by spreading rumours about him allegedly being pulled over for drunk driving.
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vancouver mayor ken sim.
arlen redekop
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vancouver mayor ken sim has launched a defamation lawsuit against his former chief of staff and a local businessman, alleging they spread baseless rumours that the mayor was pulled over by police while driving drunk.
in the lawsuit filed friday in b.c. supreme court, sim says he was defamed by comments that were made by his former chief of staff and campaign manager, kareem allam, in two private conversations in 2023 and 2024, and by local businessman alex g. tsakumis in public posts on x.
the lawsuit alleges that allam told tsakumis in november 2023 that sim had driven his car while drunk and was stopped by vancouver police department officers, who let the mayor go without being booked or cited for an offence.
allam managed the successful 2022 election campaign for sim and his political party abc vancouver, and then briefly served as the mayor’s chief of staff before leaving city hall in february 2023.
allam made those november 2023 statements to tsakumis, the lawsuit alleges, “with the intent that mr. tsakumis would make the statements to others, including on the internet.”
on nov. 23, 2023, tsakumis wrote posts on x, describing the mayor being “pulled over by the vpd for drunk driving,” and “the vancouver police essentially let him go.”
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“sim must be held accountable,” tsakumis wrote. “he’s a joke.”
the lawsuit also claims that allam told a member of sim’s abc vancouver party in june 2024 that the mayor had been pulled over.
in march and april of this year, in the lead-up to a city council byelection, the statements were republished in flyers distributed the public, the lawsuit says.
the flyers said: “mayor ken sim had a dui suspiciously ‘cleared’ by the vpd and subsequently poured millions of dollars into their budget, which is a major conflict of interest and likely corruption.”
b.c.’s office of the police complaint commissioner investigated the allegation that vpd officers had pulled over the mayor in 2023 and inappropriately let him go. the chief of the abbotsford police department completed a report for the commissioner in october that called the police misconduct allegation “baseless.”
the mayor’s lawsuit, filed by vancouver lawyer david church, seeks aggravated and punitive damages from the two defendants. it alleges tsakumis and allam displayed “a wanton and flagrant disregard for the plaintiff’s rights” and made false statements “intended to injure the plaintiff as a public official, in his role as mayor, and the plaintiff suffered damage as a result.”
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allam said: “it is a matter of public record that i was not the source of these rumours. i intend to vigorously defend that i was not the source of these rumours.”
the lawsuit, allam said, is “nothing more than a cheap distraction to distract voters in vancouver” from the fact that property taxes have increased more during sim’s term than any term in the city’s recent history, and made little progress in speeding up the development permitting process or making the city more friendly to businesses.
“this is a page straight out of donald trump’s playbook. every time donald trump seems to get into trouble on something,” he starts a trade war, allam said. “it’s just a distraction.”
reached friday, tsakumis said: “this is nothing but political theatre of the absurd. and you can quote me.”
to date, tsakumis said, he has never heard from sim or any lawyer or staffer acting on his behalf, asking him to delete his november 2023 tweets.
“when was he damaged? if he was damaged, if he was really damaged, he would have sued me immediately,” tsakumis said.
“i look very much forward to responding in court. … we look forward to putting the mayor on the stand.”
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