The situation quickly grew even more alarming. The Irish native learned he was being sued by the Canadian firm’s former agent, a man with links to the nation’s autocratic rulers. The agent claimed O’Mhaoinigh had pocketed $2 million in unpaid fees owed to him, news to the novice employee.
“Just yesterday or the day before, I rang my wife to remind her of how we were before United Safety came along,” O’Mhaoinigh said in an affidavit filed a year ago in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. “We were hopeful, we had plans, we wanted children, we helped each other … United Safety and its directors took away all that.”
United Safety says it had no idea Emanuelli was accused of involvement in shady activities, but did all it could with its Canadian and African lawyers to get O’Mhaoinigh released. In the meantime, the employee needlessly antagonized the judicial and political systems in Congo, tried to bribe a court officer, and spurned the help of United Safety and its lawyers, the firm charges.
“United Safety worked tirelessly and at great expense to support and free Mr. O’Mhaoinigh from detention,” CEO Lee Whittaker says in an affidavit.
So when will the federal government be sued over the imprisonment of the two Michaels in China and Linda Gibbons and Mary Wagner in Canada?