There are two versions of Howard Shore.

The one in public view is a silver-tongued Markham politician, a healthcare entrepreneur and motivational speaker who finds time to regularly meet his constituents over coffee.

The other Howard Shore is a convicted U.S. felon with a knack for landing in trouble, once serving 11 days in a Florida jail for stealing a cellphone and stalking a high-profile female lawyer. In Canada, he has also been arrested for a slew of similarly bizarre crimes — but all his hometown charges have been dropped.

The two personas are so starkly different it’s almost as though there are two Howard Shores occupying the same body, described on his American rap sheet as being 5-foot-8, 180 pounds, blue-eyed, brown-haired and “ruddy” in complexion.

Thus far, the less squeaky-clean version has remained hidden from view in Markham’s Ward 2, where Shore has served as town councillor since 2010. But on Nov. 23, the public caught a glimpse of both Howard Shores when the 46-year-old councillor was charged with theft and possession under $5,000.

York Regional Police allege he stole an iPhone from the Thornhill Fitness Centre, where Shore — a self-described fitness buff — has been a member for several months.

In an interview with the Toronto Star shortly after his arrest, Shore expressed disbelief over the charge, calling it a “misunderstanding.” His lawyer, Edward Prutschi, described his client as a “councillor with a sterling reputation and no prior involvement in the criminal system.”

But court records tell a different story, revealing a man who has had multiple brushes with the law, including past allegations that bear a similarity to this latest charge.

Both Shore and his lawyer declined to comment for this story. In an emailed statement, Prutschi wrote that he and Shore were unable to comment on “historical and foreign allegations” given the outstanding charges still before the courts.

“As Mr. Shore’s lawyer, I am firmly focused on addressing the current allegations in their normal course through the court process which we have the utmost faith and confidence in,” Prutschi wrote. “Meanwhile, Councillor Shore will remain focused on continuing his valuable work for his constituents — the people of Markham.”

The following day, however, Shore released a personal statement on his website announcing that the Star planned to “publicize the difficulties I have had over the years.”

Shore said he has “struggled with mental health issues for some time” and it has become a “tremendous burden” for him and his family.

“As a result of my illness, I have been involved in some incidents which are very embarrassing to me and my family,” he said, adding he was seeking help and taking prescribed medicine.

He later continues: “I am concerned, however, that the Star will sensationalize these terribly embarrassing incidents and thereby cause a tremendous amount of damage to my family, friends and reputation.”

Looking at Shore’s background, he seems a natural candidate for public office.

His resumé reads as though crafted by a political strategist. Inspiring family story? Check. Shore’s divorced mother, Norma, pioneered Ontario’s first house-call doctor service, a line of work her son continued after her death. Community involvement? Check. Shore served as school board trustee in York Region and once chaired a charitable organization with the Sunnybrook Hospital Foundation. Commitment to his Jewish faith? Check. Shore has spent time in Israel (he took a masters program at Tel Aviv University, according to his website) and frequently advocates for Jewish issues.

Shore even has an inspirational survival story to boot, one he has spun into a side career on the motivational speaking circuit.

In 2003, Shore was nearly paralyzed when a tree chunk fell on his head and broke two vertebrae. He bounced back from the injury to run a marathon 10 months later, becoming “the first and still only person in the world” to complete a marathon following a broken neck, according to his website, Marathon Motivation.

Shore’s comeback was covered by local media and, according to his website, the motivational speaker has presented his “powerful seminars throughout North America.” Shore also speaks at elementary schools and his website has a section on “character education,” proselytizing the importance of “character and appropriate behaviour.”

Questions over Shore’s own character and behaviour first emerged in December 2000, when a crack appeared in the polished veneer.

At the time, Shore was stepping down as trustee with York Region’s public school board, where he also served as vice-chair.

When Shore returned his laptop to the school board, there was a shocking discovery — it was the same computer reported stolen from a trustee lounge in 1998.

Shore was charged with theft. He denied the allegation and said the charges were part of a “malicious, vindictive and utterly scandalous” attack on his character, according to an article in The Liberal, a community newspaper serving Thornhill and Richmond Hill.

In 2001, Shore demanded an apology from the board when Crown Attorney Samuel Goldstein decided to withdraw the charge.

“There is no reasonable prospect of a conviction,” Goldstein told The Liberal at the time. “The reasons are many fold.”

Two years later, Shore suffered the freak accident that deepened his passion for fitness and launched his motivational speaking business.

In April 2005, one of his speaking engagements brought him to a Yonge St. Running Room — and back into the criminal court system.

On Jan. 27, 2006, Crown Attorney Miriam Henry told the court Shore had been hired by the Running Room as a motivational speaker but after his audience left for a run, he was caught on security camera rummaging through people’s belongings, taking an iPod and credit card.

According to a court transcript, Henry said Shore was later confronted with the video evidence and he returned the iPod to staff at the Running Room. Henry said Shore also attempted to return the items he purchased with the stolen credit card; two bottles of Excedrin and a Tempur pillow, which the linen store refused to take back “for hygienic reasons.”

In court, Shore’s lawyer, Jeffrey Halberstadt, said his client was medicating his injury at the time and, “although he was influenced by some degree by the medication, he wasn’t influenced to the degree to know that it was wrong and make efforts to give back the property.”

But Halberstadt highlighted Shore’s ability to “beat the odds” after his “extensive injury,” running marathons and “giving back to the community.”

“I suspect Your Honour won’t see him before the courts again,” his lawyer said.

“I deeply regret this,” Shore told the court.

His charge was withdrawn.

Henry agreed to a peace bond after she “heard about Mr. Shore’s particular background” and was given proof that he had performed 150 hours of community service.

Justice Sally Marin accepted the Crown’s decision, but urged Shore to seek counselling.

“The facts would seem to indicate to me that you have some underlying issues that you have yet to resolve,” Marin said. “It would be in your own best interests, as well as the interests of the public if you would do some counselling for whatever it is that motivated you to commit this particular type of offence.”

According to the court transcript, the community service that secured Shore’s peace bond was performed at Sunnybrook Women’s Foundation.

It was through his work with the foundation that he met a now 45-year-old lawyer who he dated for three months in 2006. The lawyer said Shore told her he was going through a divorce at the time; on a blog from his 2010 campaign website, Shore writes that he and his wife have lived in Thornhill for 18 years.

The lawyer asked not to be named because she works as counsel for the provincial government.

After the brief relationship fizzled, Shore found himself back in court — this time for allegedly criminally harassing the woman he dated.

But once again, the charge was withdrawn.

In a court transcript dated March 27, 2007, Crown Attorney Helen How conceded there were “triable issues” in the criminal harassment case, as well as “a reasonable prospect of conviction.”

Yet, she chose to withdraw Shore’s charge because he had a job offer in the United States.

“He does require one of those NAFTA visas,” How told the court. “I probably don’t have to advise the court that it’s become rather more difficult to get those since September 11th, 2001.”

“So it was in light of that . . . that led to the Crown bringing it forward and agreeing to withdraw (the charge) on the basis that we wouldn’t want to impair Mr. Shore’s ability to earn a living.”

She said Shore agreed to have no further contact with his ex-girlfriend, who was not in court that day. How said she had spoken with the woman, who “understands and appreciates, you know, begrudgingly and perhaps unhappily, the Crown’s position, but understands it’s in the Crown’s discretion to proceed as we believe proper.”

But according to the ex-girlfriend, she neither understood nor supported the Crown’s decision.

“I was not happy with it at all,” she said. “Because to me, that showed that his employment needs were far more important than my safety concerns.

“I don’t think it’s in the public’s interest to dismiss charges of such a serious nature when, as (the Crown) says, there are triable issues and a likelihood of conviction.”

The ex-girlfriend said Shore has contacted her online several times since the charge was dismissed — most recently on Nov. 17 from his Town of Markham email account. He tried to recall the email 27 minutes after he sent it but it had already been opened.

“Just came across your name and wanted to say ‘hello.’ I hope you are well,” Shore wrote under the subject line “Regards.”

Nine days after his criminal harassment charge was dropped, Shore’s ex-girlfriend also received a fax from someone claiming to be Shore’s representative. It was a notice of litigation, signed by “Mario Turco, The Legal Alternative,” threatening to sue the woman for “malicious prosecution and loss of reputation.”

There is no Mario Turco licensed as a paralegal or lawyer in Ontario, according to the Law Society of Upper Canada. When reached by the Star, Turco could neither confirm nor deny he wrote the letter. Shore never followed through with the suit.

Just three months after the Ontario courts cleared Shore of his criminal harassment charge, he was getting his mug shot taken by Florida police.

John Hurley is a Florida state judge but back in June 2007, he was working as a private practice lawyer. At the time, he liked to work out at a gym inside Fort Lauderdale’s Broward General Hospital, which was located near his law office.

“I liked it there because you didn’t have to put a lock on your locker,” Hurley said in a phone interview from his Florida home. “It just was a common thing that everybody threw their car keys and their cellphones up on the counter where you checked in.”

After a workout on June 6, 2007, Hurley could not find his cellphone, a Motorola Razr. Figuring he had misplaced it, he shrugged the incident off.

But shortly after, his friend, Barbra Stern, began receiving playful text messages from Hurley’s cellphone.

Stern, a 38-year-old lawyer who last year ran as a Democratic candidate for Florida state representative, did not know her friend had recently lost his cellphone and naturally assumed it was Hurley she was corresponding with.

She agreed over text message to meet for a drink at the Embassy Suites, a hotel near Fort Lauderdale’s cruise ports.

But as Stern waited in the hotel lobby for Hurley, who she refers to as Jay, she was approached by a stranger instead. The short, “dumpy” man asked if her name was Barbra.

“He proceeded to pretend like he was an old friend of Jay’s,” Stern recalled. “I said, you know, ‘I don’t know who the hell you are but get out of here.’ ”

Stern called Hurley’s cellphone, leaving an irritated voicemail when he didn’t pick up. Meanwhile, the man kept trying to approach her in the lobby. She then texted Hurley’s phone asking what was going on and received several messages imploring her to come to the back of the hotel.

Stern eventually left, feeling unsettled.

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“The next morning, I got a text,” she said. “(It said) ‘We could have had fun last night.’ ”

She decided to call Hurley at his office number.

“Who’s got your cellphone?” she demanded.

Stern said the stranger continued messaging her via text and email. She estimates there may have been close to 100 messages in total.

She and Hurley notified police and on June 22, 2007, Shore was apprehended at Broward General Hospital — his place of employment at the time, according to court records — and charged with grand theft in the third degree, a felony punishable by fines of up to $5,000 or five years in prison. The state attorney’s office later added a stalking charge. Shore was released on bond the next day.

According to two complaint affidavits by Det. David Ellwood, who investigated the incident, Shore “gave a taped sworn statement confessing to the theft of the phone as well as the repeated harassing course of conduct.”

“Howard Shore . . . did use a stolen cellphone that he had stolen as an instrument to willfully, maliciously and repeatedly engage in a course of conduct directed at the victim,” the detective wrote in his affidavit for the stalking offence. “The defendant harassed and cyber stalked her using the stolen cellphone to repeatedly text message the victim (with sexual overtones) and used a computer to repeatedly email the victim.”

Shore pleaded not guilty on both counts. He returned to Canada, putting his American legal problems temporarily on pause.

Back in Toronto, Shore was hired by Healthscreen. The now-defunct healthcare company provided various services to doctors, including software for maintaining electronic health records.

Within seven months, Shore was fired.

He later sued Healthscreen for wrongful dismissal, claiming he was fired without cause and seeking at least $80,713.14 in damages. The company responded with a statement of defence, countersuing for nearly twice as much.

Shore asserted in his court filing that another employee’s error resulted in his being fired. But according to Healthscreen’s statement of defence, the mistake was Shore’s alone and he was fired for “coercive sales behaviour” and conduct that was “wanton, reckless, abusive and in bad faith.”

Among Healthscreen’s claims, which have not been proven in court, is that Shore forged a doctor’s signature and sent letters to doctors’ patients without authorization. A doctor’s wife also complained Shore acted unprofessionally in her husband’s waiting room in front of patients, “leaving the office in a huff” and “utter(ing) profanities under his breath.”

After Shore’s firing, according to Healthscreen’s statement of defence, he logged onto the company’s network from home using other employees’ names. Healthscreen claims Shore then downloaded reports and deleted information, prompting the company to file a police report.

Both suits were eventually dismissed with the consent of both parties.

South of the border, approximately two months after Shore was fired in February 2008, Shore was rearrested and booked for missing a court date for his Florida charges, according to court records.

Shore’s wife posted $10,000 bond for each of her husband’s charges and he was released on April 25, 2008.

Seven months later, Shore changed his plea on the theft and stalking charges to “no contest,” which in Florida means he neither pleads guilty nor not-guilty but accepts responsibility. He was convicted of both crimes and sentenced to 11 days in jail, which he already served in pre-trial custody, according to court records. He was also ordered by the courts to pay restitution to the victims, but Hurley said he has yet to see a dime.

For Stern, her brief but bizarre encounter with Shore left her fearful of her safety and depressed for months.

“Something horrible was going to happen that night and the only reason why it didn’t was because I could sense that something was not right and I walked away,” Stern said from Florida. “You don’t get somebody to come meet you under false pretences — and represent you’re someone that you’re not — and not have an ulterior motive.”

Two years after Shore became a convicted felon in the U.S., he launched a bid for town councillor in Markham. He won, beating four challengers and capturing 2,418 votes. He now represents 27,487 Markham residents, this year earning $87,051 including benefits.

By many accounts, Shore has had a solid record as a rookie councillor, up until his theft charge last month. On Dec. 22, he makes a first appearance in a Newmarket courtroom for his current charge — it will be his sixth time defending himself against criminal allegations in 11 years.

On his campaign website, Shore listed “accountability” as one of his top priorities as town councillor.

“The residents of Thornhill deserve honesty and integrity from their Council representative,” he wrote. “You have a right to expect officials in whom you can trust.”

jyang@thestar.ca

Howard Shore’s time in court

December 2000: Howard Shore is charged with stealing a laptop from a York Region school board trustee lounge.

August 2001: Laptop charge is dropped for lack of evidence.

April 30, 2005: Charged with theft and accused of stealing an iPod and debit card from a Running Room. The Crown later tells the court Shore’s actions were caught on surveillance camera.

Jan. 27, 2006: Shore’s Running Room theft charges are withdrawn after he performs 150 hours of community service with the Sunnybrook Women’s Foundation.

Spring 2006: Starts dating a lawyer he met through the Sunnybrook Women’s Foundation. They date for approximately three months.

Sept. 18, 2006: Charged with criminally harassing his ex-girlfriend, the lawyer.

March 27, 2007: Criminal harassment charge is withdrawn. Crown Attorney Helen How tells the court Shore had a job offer in the United States and “we wouldn’t want to impair Mr. Shore’s ability to earn a living.”

June 6, 2007: Florida state judge John Hurley notices his phone is missing after working out at a gym in Fort Lauderdale. According to court records, Shore later uses the phone to “lure” a woman to a nearby hotel and send her multiple text messages and emails.

June 22, 2007: Shore is arrested by Florida police for grand theft in the third degree. A stalking charge is later added by the State Attorney’s office.

Aug. 21, 2007: Pleads not guilty to both charges.

April 17, 2008: Arrested in Florida and booked for missing a court date.

Nov. 13, 2008: Changes plea to “no contest” and is convicted of both charges.

October 2010: Elected as Ward 2 councillor in Markham.

Nov. 8, 2011: An iPhone is reported stolen from the Thornhill Fitness Centre.

Nov. 23, 2011: Shore is charged with theft and possession under $5,000 for the iPhone theft.

Dec. 22, 2011: First appearance in a Newmarket court for the recent theft charges.

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