A registered Florida sex offender, who spent two years in prison on a child pornography conviction, has been deemed to be of “good character” for a licence to practise law in Ontario.

Ronald Ori Davidovic, 44, appeared before a three-member panel of the Law Society of Upper Canada tribunal last December in what is known as a “good character hearing,” where he sought to prove that he is rehabilitated and committed to upholding the law if allowed to practise.

Counsel for the law society ultimately decided not to oppose his application, and Davidovic’s wish was granted by the panel in a 2-1 decision released last week.

As an individual educated outside of Canada, Davidovic must still satisfy other criteria before being granted a licence to practise.

“The applicant has thoroughly understood what he has done. He has worked very hard since (his arrest) to reach this point in terms of rehabilitation,” wrote panel members Raj Anand and Jan Richardson. “We therefore find that the applicant is of good character and grant his application for licensing as a lawyer in Ontario.”

But the dissenting panel member, criminal defence lawyer Paul Cooper, found that there simply wasn’t enough evidence of rehabilitation before the tribunal, and said he would not have granted Davidovic’s application.

“In this case, the applicant’s statements of regret at the hearing focused on the nightmare he suffers or the shame he suffers and as he describes in his testimony the ‘handicap’ of him being labeled as a consumer of child pornography by the community. Mr. Davidovic failed to recognize what he has done and only provides lip service to any victim empathy,” Cooper wrote.

“There is insufficient evidence that the applicant is rehabilitated. The misconduct was sexually motivated and he possessed a magnetic attraction. He has been diagnosed with non-specified paraphilia and this diagnosis remains unresolved.”

Davidovic, who was born in Montreal and moved to Florida with his family when he was a child, pleaded guilty in 2004 to one count of “receiving material containing the visual depiction of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct,” according to an agreed statement of fact filed at the tribunal.

He had practised in Florida for eight years, including estate and financial planning and then as general counsel “for a large telecommunications company.” He was permitted to resign from the Florida bar after his conviction.

Davidovic told the law society panel that he has many close relatives in Toronto, and wants to practise criminal law. “He believes that his experience will enable him to assist others,” the majority wrote.

He told the Star in an email this week that he is grateful for the majority’s decision. “I am naturally pleased with the outcome, which was the culmination of a long investigative process,” he wrote.

“I respect Mr. Cooper’s opinion but look forward to the opportunity to prove otherwise. My position, right now, is to focus on the positive news and commit myself to being an asset to the practice.”

Davidovic began viewing child porn in 1998, according to the statement of fact, and admitted to the panel having viewed hundreds or thousands of images, although his viewing frequency “lessened somewhat” after his first marriage.

The majority wrote that Davidovic satisfied his probation requirements including counselling and has not been found guilty of a crime since then or committed improper conduct.

A therapist who saw Davidovic after his release from prison told the law society that he “worked very hard to understand his disorder,” took complete responsibility and his chance of reoffending is small.

“The applicant’s misconduct was very serious, and justified elevated concern from a public protection standpoint,” the majority wrote.

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“Although there is a reference in one of the Florida court documents to a ‘victimless’ crime, we view it as anything but that. The underage victims were nameless, vulnerable and perhaps distant from the computer screen, but they suffered exploitation and incalculable harm to satisfy the sexual urges of viewers such as the applicant.

“As a lawyer, occupying a crucial role in upholding the rule of law, the applicant’s offence constituted a breach of trust.”

The panel chose not to rely on evidence in the agreed statement of fact from an Anglican reverend and “analytical psychologist” who began seeing Davidovic in the year preceding his time in prison and after his release.

The majority said they found Rev. Fred Fleischer’s opinions were not “sufficiently precise to be of assistance to us in making this decision.”

Fleischer saw Davidovic to help him understand why he had a “magnetic pull” to child pornography, as well as to help him cope with his divorce from his first wife and the death of his father, according to the agreed statement of fact.

“The applicant’s parents were Holocaust survivors and his father in particular had never connected with his parents. His father was an emotional wreck who felt he was never good enough and as such placed the burden on the applicant to be his redeemer,” says the agreed statement of fact regarding Fleischer’s opinions on Davidovic.

“Therefore, from the time the applicant was a small child, a lot was projected on him by his father to be the golden boy. He had to carry his father’s acceptability and respectability from the time he was an infant and, he was robbed his childhood. The images of the children having sex forced on them was symbolic, as these images represented the applicant as a child having to carry his father’s burden.”

Cooper, in his dissent, took issue with the fact that the expert reports that were relied on by the panel were all quite dated, some more than a decade old.

He also called Fleischer’s description of his opinion of Davidovic “callous” and “insensitive.”

“It is outrageous for Rev. Fleischer to suggest the applicant’s upbringing was akin to having his mind raped with the backdrop of children aged 5 to 17 who were in fact exploited, abused, and raped,” Cooper wrote.