TheStar.com – News – From jokester to jailbird— This is kind of a shame. The comic has been thrown in the slammer and left to rot when he is obviously disturbed.
Tony told friends he was connected to higher energies and had “information to save the planet,” says his long-time friend Derek McGrath, who plays Rev. Magee in Little Mosque on the Prairie. Rosato believes he is “the guardian of light,” adds McGrath, who worked with Rosato at Second City and has supported the beleaguered actor through his legal travails, attending most of his court appearances with Tony’s cousin Lena DeCaria, a Mississauga banker.
A letter Rosato wrote from jail on June 5, 2005, a month after his arrest, gives his version of what happened after the departure of Leah and the baby. It documents what he perceived as evidence that he was the victim of a “fraudulent hoax” – that his wife and daughter had been replaced by doubles.
The CD wedding photos Leah left behind, Rosato wrote, proved the woman in the pictures was not his real wife but a “twin.” His real wife had obviously been replaced by a duplicate who was “dressed identically” to his wife.
Rosato wrote that he went to Toronto and then Kingston police to tell them that his wife had been switched with an imposter. Kingston Det. Const. Jeff Smith told him to stay away from Leah.
Rosato’s letter indicated that he visited Kingston police again after supervised visits with his baby in March and April 2005. The first visit led him to complain in the letter that his daughter was “clearly suffering from emotional and physical abuse,” while during the second, he protested, he was presented with the wrong baby. As evidence, he brought police a photo of a “wife look alike” and of the baby from the second visit.
obviously he is slated to be the founder of a major religion. schizoprenia is a prime characteristic of those who speak to god.
This is a damn shame. This guy shouldn’t be punished by incarceration when he’s obviously sick. What a sad state of affairs.
I hate to say this but this sounds like a psychiatric condition known as a Capgras phenomena (???spelling probably wrong – family practitioner what ya gonna do…) and is in DSM4.
Has someone told his lawyers!
If not they probably should – poor sod.
IJ
From what I have read, he reminds me of someone I encountered. They need secured internment and medical help.
Steven Wright should be mad that this guy is stealing his material..
Come on.. everything was stolen and replaced with an exact duplicate..
how old is that?
Yeah, I remember this guy frm SNL and SCTV. That is sad tale, how can you hold somebody without a trial for that long ( I know we have Gitmo), Canada?
One of the great failures of mental health in America is that we emptied our mental hospitals because they were too much like prisons. We were going to treat them in more humane out-patient facilities.
It was possibly a good idea until the anti-tax conservatives defunded mental health, sending the mentally ill to the streets and un treated.
Now, instead of being in “jail like” mental hospitals, they are just in jail.
And, I doubt we’re saving a dime of tax dollars, since its horribly expensive to jail them, too.
That’s terribly sad. Not just sad, scary. Not only are his rights being violated but they continue to deny him the help he needs.
I remember him most from SCTV. I still quote from his “Cooking with Marcello” skits. He was good.
It turns out Canada has their own neocons and they are just as nasty, if not nastier, than the neocons in the States. One Minister of the Provincial government seriously proposed a law that would force homeless people to take their mind-altering medications – or else.
This idea was part of his platform for the leadership of his party.
What can you do with a mentally ill person who’s been dumped on the street by the government and who hasn’t the mental capacity to either acquire or take medications?
This Conservative cabinet minister wanted the cops to throw all such people in jail, strap them down and inject their medications. No-one really knows how long this was supposed to last but presumably, you would at least have to repeat the procedure at medication time every day.
To ‘clean up the streets’, this same Conservative cabinet minister wanted to throw all homeless people into jail indefinitely. I guess the charge would have been “homeless with no good excuse” or “homeless with no hope” or something like that.
You’d think such sentiments would disqualify this guy from being elected again and in a way, it did. He got soundly defeated as the next Conservative leader.
What’s he doing now? Digging ditches would be too good for him?
Well, it’s hard to believe but he got himself elected to the Federal government and right now, he’s the Finance Minister for all of Canada!
It just goes to show you; the Canadian government makes no more sense than the American government.
Tony Rosato’s trial starts on August 7, 2007 in Kingston, ON
Daniel J. Brodsky
=====================================================
From: Larissa Banting [mailto:lbanting@hotmail.com]
Sent: July 24, 2007 6:07 PM
To: Daniel Brodsky
Subject: Tony Rosato case
Dear Daniel
Dale Anne Freed gave me your email address.
I have just learned about the unfortunate case of Tony Rosato (I have been living in Costa Rica for the past 6 years) as I just stumbled upon Dale’s article. I’m shocked to say the least. As someone who has a personal history with him (although brief), my heart goes out to him.
Tony had been living in Toronto since the late 1990’s and I’d first met him in August of 2000 on set the set of Mendors when he
guest starred on a children’s tv show I was working on in Edmonton – he
was playing Casanova and he gave an outstanding performance, adding in layers and nuances as well as additions to dialogue that took the episode beyond what was originally on the page . He was an absolute joy to work with – funny, warm, loved the child actors and really took time to be with them and pass along advice. No ego, no tantrums, no green M & Ms – just a professional artist focusing on his craft.
He is a very charasmatic person with an intense presence and a brilliant mind. He was very into spiritualism and did believe he was connected to the higher plains but nothing that sounded any ‘alarm bells’ – he seemed like others I’ve met on the path to self-enlightenment who have reached some level of truth/understanding. Towards the end of 2001, he was working on getting his green card to work in the US again and felt ready to head back to LA. He sold his house in Cabbagetown (he’d owned it since the 80’s) but was on hard financial times and the permanent move to LA was in flux. By December 2001, we ended up going our separate ways .
Tony told me about the drugs back in the SNL days, how the coke kept him going to meet the punishing deadlines of writing and rehearsing the show demanded on a weekly basis – it was also the 80’s and it was the drug of choice. He’d quit that years and years ago. While I knew him, he didn’t even drink wine. He had a very clean lifestyle – spent time writing, doing voice over work, working as an actor, doing tarot card readings, playing the piano. His only vice was the odd joint now and then. And he certainly was not violent – never saw the slightest inkling of anger or violence.
He was passionate about justice and the injustice of his situation is beyond epic proportions. It is as if he is stuck in a cruel story by Kafka or Orwell.
Tony Rosato is not a criminal or a threat to the community – he is a genius whose mind has unfotunately fallen into an abyss.
I’m thankful to Dale for being the torch bearer and shedding light into this dark chapter of Canadian judicial history – it’s shocking, it’s sad and it shouldn’t happen to anyone, least of all someone who clearly is in need of psychiatric treatment.
And thank you, Daniel, for taking on this case. I’m sure it’s not been easy, given Tony’s state right now which being in maximum prison for two years has only exasperated. I wish you the very best in your upcoming battle..
Please pass along my wishes of support to Tony (he didn’t have email when we were in contact). I’m sure he could use all the positive words of encouragement he can get right now.
And thanks for reading this email – it’s such a horrible story, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. He is a good man – I just hope he gets the help he desperately needs so he can go on to create the things of beauty and truth he so believes in.
Best,
Larissa Banting