Former councillor Gurpreet Dhillon finalizing lawsuit as report remains on Brampton website years after assault allegations were withdrawn

Former Brampton councillor Gurpreet Dhillon says he is finalizing a lawsuit against the City of Brampton after municipal officials including Mayor Patrick Brown continue to ignore his requests to expunge an integrity commissioner report on since-withdrawn sexual assault allegations made against him. 

Dhillon is also raising a number of issues with misleading claims being made by Brown and Integrity Commissioner Muneeza Sheikh regarding the report Sheikh authored, without following proper procedures. In it she concluded Dhillon sexually assaulted a Brampton businesswoman during a City trade mission to Turkey in 2019. She claimed, despite Dhillon’s consistent denials, that an assault did take place during the trip, and on her recommendation Council, led by Brown, suspended him without pay for 90 days in 2020 for allegedly violating the Code that governs council behaviour. Sheikh’s investigation report carries no legal standing and is not part of a court process. Her claims that Dhillon violated the Code are in no way linked to any legal finding of guilt.

Peel Police confirmed in 2020 that it never launched an investigation and Dhillon told The Pointer at the time that he was never contacted by police about the allegations.

In a letter sent to the City in September or October 2023, the woman withdrew her allegations against Dhillon and alleged she was coached and coerced to make the false accusations and that “misinformation” was used by “people who were not genuine with their intentions.”

According to a statement Dhillon provided to The Pointer on May 14, his lawyer is currently in the process of finalizing a lawsuit. In 2024 his lawyers sent the draft of a $5 million lawsuit to the City of Brampton after he made his first request to have the report removed from the City website when the woman’s letter was sent to Brampton’s head lawyer in 2023. 

In the May 14 statement to The Pointer, Dhillon says the legal action is not about money. 

“I want to be clear that this legal action is about accountability, not personal gain. By playing jurisdictional ‘ping-pong’ for nearly two years in order to damage my reputation, the City is forcing me to consider legal action,” Dhillon wrote in the post that he has shared on social media. 

“The coordinated behaviour is a clear demonstration of institutional bad faith that carries a direct cost to Brampton taxpayers. Because I am committed to the protection of the public interest, I have pledged that once my legal costs are recovered, any remaining funds from a legal award will be reinvested back into the Brampton community. The taxpayers should not have to pay the price for the institutional misconduct of a few individuals and I intend to ensure those resources are returned to the people.”

The City of Brampton, Sheikh and Mayor Brown did not respond to requests for comment from The Pointer about Dhillon’s pending lawsuit, and whether the report will be removed from the City website.

Sheikh also did not address questions seeking clarification on statements she made during her May 6 delegation to council, which lacked critical details. 

During that presentation, when she finally addressed the withdrawn allegations, Sheikh claimed she has been working for the last two years to verify the letter sent to the City of Brampton from the complainant withdrawing the allegations against Dhillon. According to her, she has been unable to contact the woman. 

“I have really done everything in my power to try and see, first, on a very preliminary and superficial basis, to see if the letter that was presented to council in September of 2023 actually was from the complainant, and for the better part of three years I have been unsuccessful in doing so,” she told council members Wednesday. “If I was able to connect with the complainant I would be happy to revisit my report, if in fact that’s appropriate.”

Sheikh did not explain what specific efforts she has made to find the complainant since the allegations were withdrawn.

The Pointer easily identified the complainant online, found who she appears to be working for and where. Her name and identifying information are not being published; The Pointer obtained her name from an internal memo sent by the City’s head lawyer in April of 2024 to all members of council confirming the allegations against Dhillon had been withdrawn. 

Brampton Integrity Commissioner Muneeza Sheikh delegates to council virtually on May 6. She has ignored questions seeking clarification on numerous statements she made during the meeting.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer files)

Sheikh said she spoke with the lawyer who represented the woman when the matter was being dealt with, claiming they have not communicated for more than a year.

She failed to address the details of her conversation with the lawyer and made no mention of asking if the lawyer had helped draft the 2023 letter, if the woman’s identity had been verified as the letter writer and if the lawyer had been made aware that the client had withdrawn her allegations against Dhillon.

Sheikh failed to mention anything about inquiring with the woman’s lawyers about the authentication of the letter. She did not answer questions from The Pointer seeking clarification about why she failed to explain the details of her communication with the woman’s lawyer, and why she did not mention anything about having the lawyer verify the letter and the withdrawn allegations.

Dhillon has emphasized that the “verification” of the letter is not necessary because it was sent to his lawyer by the woman’s lawyer at the time. He says the claims by Brown and Sheikh are a distraction. 

“The IC has been privy to essential correspondence regarding this withdrawal, including the original, unredacted email from the former complainant’s lawyer. She has had the full opportunity to review the client verification procedures utilized by the former complainant’s legal counsel—procedures which, under professional standards, provide the necessary validation of the former complainant's identity,” Dhillon said in his statement. “In her latest update, the IC admits to having been in contact with the former complainant’s lawyer. This admission should have effectively ended the debate over 'verification as she should have brought up the question of identity with that lawyer directly.' Crucially, the IC’s update failed to mention whether she directly questioned that lawyer on the only matter that carries legal weight: that lawyer’s own professional verification of the letter he transmitted. Instead, she relies on the 'red herring' that both the IC and that lawyer are currently unable to reach the complainant. Verification is established at the time a legal counsel issues a document; it does not expire or require 're-verification' simply because that party is currently not able to be contacted. The IC is misleading Brampton City Council and the public.”

Dhillon continued: “The evidence is undeniable, and it is clear that their refusal to expunge this report is a calculated decision made for political purposes rather than legal ones.”

Brown and Sheikh did not respond to questions from The Pointer. 

They have been heavily criticized for her original hiring as the city’s integrity commissioner following his 2018 election. They had personal and professional connections and critics said that should have disqualified her from the job. Brampton’s previous integrity commissioner resigned from the post due to his connections to Brown. 

Sheikh had never worked in municipal law and had never served as an integrity commissioner.

In 2022, when Dhillon was part of a majority group of six councillors who launched a number of forensic investigations into Brown’s conduct as mayor, which included a probe into how Sheikh was hired, the same group of councillors fired her after complaints of her alleged bias in favour of Brown when she exonerated him despite clear violations of rules when he opened up a city hockey arena during the pandemic for his personal use.

They also questioned her excessive billing at seven times the rate compared to previous integrity commissioners, which Brampton taxpayers were forced to pay. She threatened a lawsuit against each of the six members, including Dhillon.

Brown cancelled the investigations in August of 2022, including the probe into how Sheikh was hired under his leadership despite their connections and her lack of any relevant experience.

When Brown was reelected later in 2022 and most of his former council opponents did not return, including Dhillon who was narrowly defeated in that year’s election following Brown’s repeated attacks accusing him of sexual assault, the controversial mayor rehired Sheikh shortly after.

Dhillon said in his public statement that Sheikh should recuse herself entirely from the matter now because she is in a conflict after she sued Dhillon and other members of council for firing her in 2022. He said her bias against him should also disqualify her from dealing with the matter.

In 2020 Dhillon said Brown had directly interfered with Sheikh’s investigation. She admitted in her report that she learned of the complaint from Brown, who called her about the matter, then visited the woman himself, face-to-face, with some of his staff, before the investigation was launched by the integrity commissioner, who ignored City of Brampton rules that required a formal complaint from the accuser before a probe could be initiated.

The former complainant wrote in her letter withdrawing the allegations that she was coached and coerced to bring her accusations forward by people who manipulated her.

Mayor Patrick Brown and Muneeza Sheikh had political and personal connections prior to her being hired as the City of Brampton’s integrity commissioner.

(Patrick Brown)

Dhillon further criticized Sheikh’s claim that the retraction letter is unverified, as it departs from previous statements made by the City’s legal officials.

The April 2024 memo The Pointer obtained, written by the City’s head lawyer at the time, and sent to all members of council, informed them that in October the previous year, Brampton’s legal office had received a letter written by the woman, withdrawing all allegations against Dhillon, whose lawyers had received the letter from the woman’s lawyer. Dhillon’s lawyers then sent the letter and his demands that Sheikh’s report be expunged to the City. He also asked for a formal apology to clear his name.

“The current claim that this matter is “unverified” is a suspicious departure from the City’s own legal record,” Dhillon wrote in his public statement last week. “In a formal memo to Council dated April 4, 2024, the City Solicitor Sameer Akhtar acknowledged that his office had been in possession of the withdrawal letter since October 2023. At no point in that memo from two years ago did the City Solicitor’s office suggest the letter lacked authenticity or required further ‘verification’ before being presented to the Mayor and Council.

“Furthermore, that memo explicitly directed that the jurisdiction for addressing the report lay with the Integrity Commissioner, yet the IC’s counsel stated the opposite months later. This jurisdictional ‘ping-pong’ is not a matter of procedural confusion, it is a clear demonstration of institutional bad faith, where the City and the Integrity Commissioner are coordinating a cycle of finger-pointing to avoid the legal and moral obligation of correcting the public record.” 

Email: [email protected]m

At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories to ensure every resident of Brampton, Mississauga and Niagara has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial HERE. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you