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Ms. Walton and Rose and Thistle said they “strongly disagree” with Justice Newbould’s decision and are appealing.

“Rose and Thistle has been in business with Dr. Bernstein for five years,” according to a statement e-mailed to the National Post. “Rose and Thistle regrets this situation and we hope to resolve the litigation to both parties’ satisfaction soon.”

What happened here, not to put too fine a point on it, was theft

Lawyers for Mr. Bernstein and his holding company, DBDC Spadina Ltd., and for the consultancy Schonfeld Inc., declined to comment.

Dr. Bernstein, now in his seventies, is perhaps the most successful diet doctor in Canada. The Bernstein regimen involves vitamin-B injections and an ultra low-calorie diet of roughly 850 calories per day. The diet has drawn the ire of critics who claim that the rapid weight loss it produces is dangerous. But Dr. Bernstein’s clients often sing the praises of their weight transformations, and with more than 60 clinics across Canada and about half a million patients (paying more than $1,100 for an 8-week program), he certainly would have had a lot of money to put into investments.

Why he decided to invest tens of millions with the Waltons and their relatively unknown Rose and Thistle Group is unclear.

Dr. Bernstein met the Waltons in 2008 when he was approached to act as a mortgagor, through one of his companies, for a property in Toronto owned by the Waltons and another investor, he said in his Oct. 1 affidavit.

The doctor acted as the lender and mortgagee for roughly eight mortgages on commercial real estate properties for the Waltons, either through Rose and Thistle or through other corporations, between 2008 and 2010, according to court documents.