MANDEL: Muzzled ex of business titan pleads to see son in Bahamas
Laura MacDonald alleges powerful Catalyst head honcho Newton Glassman is using the Bahamian courts to stop her from seeing their son
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But she can’t tell you about it herself.
Laura MacDonald has been muzzled by a December 2023 injunction won by her ex-husband in the Bahamas that prevents her from speaking or posting on social media about their son or on any matters concerning him or she will face contempt of court.
So her family is speaking on her behalf, in hopes the publicity might convince her ex to do the right thing.
“She’s gone public in an attempt to see her son and to be a part of his life,” says her brother, Bill MacDonald.
The boy, who can’t be named by the mother under Bahamas’ Family Law Act, isn’t MacDonald’s biological son but she’s been his mom from the start.
“She was there for the birth,” her brother says.
A former pharmaceutical rep with a daughter from a previous relationship, MacDonald married Glassman in 2016 and the family moved in 2020 to the Bahamas where they lived in an exclusive compound.
“It was not a perfect marriage,” her brother contends.
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After the couple separated around Easter 2022, MacDonald moved to another building in the compound and they worked out an access schedule between them. But when she took her daughter to Toronto to visit her biological father, she says Glassman accused her of kidnapping and claimed their son was in danger of being taken as well.
“There’s been a never-ending flood of legal attacks,” the brother alleges. “He’s made every claim possible: he’s claimed that she was … distant, that she was this, she was that, he’s made every possible claim in order to deem her unfit.”
“He’s claimed she’ll take him and run off. He’s claimed she’ll poison him against Newton. Everything that you can possibly claim, he throws it at the wall.”
His sister has denied it all.
Self-described as “notoriously private, even reclusive,” Glassman is the founding partner of private equity giant Catalyst Capital, which has been part of some of the biggest restructurings in Canada, including Canwest Global, Imax Corp. and Hollinger Inc.
The 60-year-old wealthy businessman is also no stranger to the courts. As an 18-year-old, he successfully sued his surgeon father for support. A 2016 article noted his “bulldog approach to business – including a tendency to litigate.”
In dismissing one of his many lawsuits against a competitor in the private equity market, now-retired Superior Court Justice Frank Newbould once found Glassman “aggressive” and “argumentative.”
Ontario court documents show that in a battle to undermine the judge’s decision, Catalyst hired an investigation and security company that in turn subcontracted Black Cube, a private investigation firm based in Israel comprised of former members of the Israeli Defence Force and the Mossad, which conducted a failed sting on Newbould in an effort to find bias.
Catalyst has said that it did not order the sting or know about it until after it happened.
But there is little doubt she was up against a powerful man.
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According to MacDonald, Glassman won an ex parte motion in the Bahamas Supreme Court in June 2022 that placed heavy restrictions on her ability to see their son after alleging she might kidnap him; she had to hand in her passport and ask permission before going anywhere with him.
She claims she was followed everywhere and eventually felt she had to leave and return to Canada. She called their son twice a day and left messages, sent care packages, tried to see him through lawyers and claims she was denied all access for over a year.
According to court documents, both parents accuse each other of bad behaviour – which each denies.
Last September, the distraught mom mounted a social media “Love Campaign” that garnered over a million views and lots of support. Her brother says Glassman responded with a text: she could have a short visit.
So she travelled to the Bahamas with her brother.
“It was a joke,” he recalls of their visit, explaining they were escorted into a boardroom where the child was surrounded by lawyers and security guards, and she was told to sit across the table from him.
“She had five minutes. It was like a prison visit. It was insane,” her brother claims.
She hasn’t seen or spoken to the boy since, her brother says.
According to Bahamian court documents, Glassman won an injunction in December 2023 that stops MacDonald from discussing their son publicly and ordered her to remove all posts currently on social media. He was also granted an order suspending all access.
“It’s been soul destroying,” her brother insists. “Over the last couple of years, I don’t think a minute goes by, this is her only thought, her only focus: What can I do? How can I get back into his life?”
Glassman would not comment on MacDonald’s allegations.
Editor’s note: Newton Glassman has told the Toronto Sun that he cannot comment on the divorce proceedings because he, Ms. MacDonald and others subject to the jurisdiction of Bahamas are prohibited from doing so by The Child Protection Act of the Bahamas and a court order of the Bahamas Supreme Court.
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