No law against being repugnant

Acquitted: Abusive ex-hockey coach of teen teams known for their 2-fisted drinking and 3-way sex
November 29, 2008
by Rosie Dimanno, Columnist
NAPANEE–He wore untucked fat-man shirts to court that failed to conceal the sagging paunch of a beer gut.
His hair is a modified mullet, the face slack and jowly.
Some days, he appeared greasy enough to slide off his chair.
And he's got an anatomical abnormality that, mercifully, was never entered as a photographic exhibit – a plum-sized blood sac resembling a third testicle.
But little is actually known about who David Frost is today – apart from innocent of sexual exploitation, acquitted across the board. Frost: 4, Crown: 0.
Does he even have a job, this evermore hockey pariah, decertified as an agent, stripped of coaching credentials, barred from rinks in various leagues, though often spotted? And whence the money for the sharp cookie lady defence lawyer, who so devastatingly deked a brace of accusatory witnesses out of their Jill-straps?
Court never heard. Frost never spoke.
Except yesterday of course, expletive-short, after long-winded Justice Geoffrey Griffin finally got around to the punch-line of his not-guilty verdict and abruptly left the room in a swish of judicial robes.
"Scumball!" a spectator – sibling to one of the aforementioned witnesses – hissed at Frost. "That's for my sister."
Upon which the cleared defendant turned, faced the female and spat back: "Go f--- yourself."
Now that's the Frost most people know, defiant and crude, ego wider than his girth; not the accused who sat so quietly through weeks of trial, endlessly writing notes, rarely lifting his head.
Frost: The coach whose teen teams were known for two-fisted drinking and three-way sex.
Frost: The agent targeted by one of his own NHL clients in a loony murder-for-hire plot.
Frost: The bench boss who brutalized his players, verbally and physically – there's no disputing this – slugging one of them in the face during a playoff game, pleading guilty to assault and receiving a conditional discharge.
So, a creep and a bully and a repugnant human being. But there's no law against that.
Frost walked out of court an innocent if disgraced man: Not guilty of perverting the trust of teenage boys as a person of authority in their lives, not guilty of inappropriately, directly or indirectly, touching their splendid young bodies, thus not guilty of coerced and sordid two-on-one sex involving the youths and their girlfriends.
While stating his decision wasn't simply a matter of accepting one package of evidence over another, Griffin clearly did not believe the testimony of two ex-girlfriends recalling events more than a decade after the Season of Frost, in nearby Deseronto.
Or, more accurately put, Griffin disbelieved the women more than he disbelieved the heated denials of three-way sex by a one-two combo of Frost's former player protégés.
Frost may have been "loud, vulgar, offensive, very aggressive ... abusive and intimidating'' in his coaching style, said Griffin. "But I am not prepared to conclude the level of control was as extreme and pervasive as the Crown would have me believe."
Griffin also smacked around the prosecution – led by assistant Crown attorney Sandy Tse – for failing to convince him on the crux of the case. The judge expressed amazement the Crown hadn't called players' parents, sports psychologists and police investigators, or subpoena cellphone records.
Even minus all that, the trial did expose a seamy underbelly to Canada's beloved national game, at least at the junior level, more specifically in Frost World, where females were routinely debased and males subjected to traumatizing abuse. It was an ugly environment.
"He's really relieved," said defence lawyer Marie Henein, speaking on behalf of her client. "It's been going on for four years. He has a lovely wife, lovely children and everything's been very difficult, just going out and about in town, sending their children to a regular school."
The Crown found itself in the awkward position of not only prosecuting the named defendant but needing to crush the credibility of the two "complainants'' at the heart of their case.
Now both 28, these former hockey players took the stand – in one of those courtroom gasp moments, and this trial had many – as witnesses for the defence, flatly denying sexual exploitation and three-way shags with their coach/mentor.
In coming to the testimonial rescue of a man they once feared and revered, the one-time junior stars methodically contradicted the evidence of friends, lovers, teammates, even their own previously sworn statements to police.
The four sexual exploitation charges related to alleged incidents dating back to the late 1990s, when Frost appropriated the coaching job on a rogue league junior team in Deseronto, the Quinte Hawks.
Teenage girls, some at least, were clearly giddy over the young stud players arriving in their dull hamlet and pursued them as boyfriends.
Two of these girls, now women in their late 20s, testified they'd reluctantly agreed to threesomes with their boyfriends and Frost.
Under cross-examination, one of the women admitted she'd never noticed Frost's blood sac, despite all the three-way sex she'd described.
Her ex disputed any sex with Frost had taken place, or that he'd ever touched the coach's penis, under any circumstances. There had been, he readily acknowledged, two-on-one sex, but only involving same-age teammates, with Jennifer more than a willing party.
These consensual threesomes, the player testified, included two specific teammates, one of whom was Mike Danton – then still using his family surname of Jefferson – the former St. Louis Blue currently serving a seven-year sentence in the U.S. for trying to hire a hit man to kill Frost, his then-agent.
The other key female witness, Kristy, recalled two alleged incidents of three-way sex with Frost.
Henein told court none of these sexual follies ever occurred, suggesting the women had colluded in a plot after the Crown dropped charges of sexual exploitation against them.
Technically, the "complainants" were the players – their identities protected by a publication ban – alleged by the prosecution to have been under thrall to and sexually exploited by Frost. But the players never actually complained to authorities and, driving a stake into the Crown's case, exculpated Frost of all allegations against him.
Frost will be back in court in a few weeks. He's been charged with fraud and impersonation for using Danton's credit card to buy gas.
-30-
The above column is from The Star.
Rosie seldom minces words.