After an emotional apology for skipping a sentencing hearing to do interviews for CP24, lawyer and frequent media commentator Ari Goldkind avoided being cited for contempt of court by a Toronto judge on Monday morning.

Addressing Superior Court Justice Michael Dambrot, Goldkind admitted to making a “very poor decision” and said his failure to attend court was not just “inconvenient or disruptive but disrespectful to (the judge) personally and to the court as an institution.”

Goldkind’s lawyer Scott Hutchinson told the court that on June 7, Goldkind was “offered a professional opportunity from a media outlet” and attempted to reschedule the June 8 sentencing hearing to accommodate it.

The Crown refused to do so and on June 8, Goldkind did not attend court for the hearing scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Instead, he was at a TV interview.

The hearing was adjourned that morning to a future date.

Goldkind was supposed to have been representing Emanuel Lozada, who was convicted by a jury of manslaughter in the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Rameez Khalid during Nuit Blanche in 2013.

A video posted to his Facebook page on June 8 shows him doing an interview that afternoon on CP24 in front of the courthouse about the trial of three Toronto police officers accused of sexual assault. The post says that was one of many interviews that day.

The sentencing hearing was adjourned until June 19, when Goldkind explained his absence was due to a personal matter he could not get out of, an answer that “was less than transparent and less than clear,” Hutchinson said.

However, Hutchinson said Goldkind was not trying to hide what he did.

“It was very obvious where Mr. Goldkind was and what was going on,” Hutchinson said. He said Goldkind was attempting to avoid drawing anyone else into a situation he had created himself.

Court heard that Goldkind wrote a letter of apology to Khalid’s family that he hopes will be passed on to them through the Crown.

“This was a problem of my own doing, my own choosing and in future I will not make such a mistake again,” he said.

Hutchinson said Goldkind spoke with two senior defence lawyers about his conduct and both said Goldkind acknowledged his mistake, and admitted he was “the author of his own predicament,” and that they were confident he would never do it again.

Justice Dambrot set Monday’s hearing for Goldkind to argue why he should not be cited for contempt.

Dambrot said he found Goldkind’s conduct particularly serious because of his “insensitivity to the family of the deceased and initial lack of candour.”

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However, he accepted Goldkind’s “very full, eloquent and unquestionably sincere apology” as well as his remedial efforts, and chose not to cite him for contempt.

Lozada was sentenced last month to three years in prison along with his co-accused Victor Ramos, who was also convicted of manslaughter. A third man, Joseph Triolo, was convicted of second-degree murder.