When lawyer Itamar Cohen, 53, of Thornhill read an online Star article this week reporting that a GTA man named Itamar Cohen, 52, of Thornhill pleaded guilty in New Jersey to a massive stock fraud, he was understandably distraught and concerned about his reputation in his community.

The 53-year-old Cohen, of Jenstar Way in Thornhill, is an Israeli lawyer who has lived in Canada since 1998. Licenced as a foreign legal consultant in Ontario to advise on Israeli law, he is the owner of Itamar Cohen Israeli Law Office in Thornhill. He also works as a high school teacher at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto.

This Itamar Cohen of Thornhill is not the person named Itamar Cohen of Thornhill who pleaded guilty in Newark, N.J., last week to a 2007-08 stock manipulation scheme investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to SEC documents, the Itamar Cohen who admitted to this stock fraud is 52 years old and, at the time of the investigation, resided in an apartment at Townsgate Dr. in Thornhill.

To say that this case of two men with the same name is an unfortunate coincidence for Cohen, 53, would be an understatement. For this father of two, it is somewhat of a nightmare that has robbed him of his sleep and peace of mind this week. Indeed, in our Google age when media reports are easily shared and always accessible, who cannot sympathize with the horror of learning that media throughout North America and beyond have reported on an admitted fraudster who shares your own distinctive name, is nearly the same age, and comes from the same small GTA community where you make your living.

“It is not me who was involved in this fraud but when people read my name they will think it is me,” Cohen told me this week in seeking some means for the Star to make clear he was not the man who committed the stock fraud. “People look at me and I know they are thinking, ‘are you that guy?’

“I’m known by many people in the community through my business and my teaching and I have to keep telling people, ‘it’s not me.’”

Stories of the $17-million U.S. stock fraud, which named “Itamar Cohen” as one of two Canadian men who pleaded guilty, broke last weekend, first on CBC News, and subsequently, in the Toronto Star and many more media organizations.

On seeing this news, numerous concerned and confused friends and colleagues of this innocent Itamar Cohen contacted him. The school where he teaches fielded so many calls from parents that the headmaster sent out a notice to make clear that the school teacher is not the fraudster. The synagogue Cohen belongs to will also inform its community. As well, Cohen himself has posted notice in the Canadian Jewish News and another community newspaper to state that he is not the guilty man.

So, does the Toronto Star have any responsibility in assisting Cohen in clearing his besmirched name? There is no error in the Star’s reporting of the facts released by the FBI and SEC. And, in reporting the guilty man’s age and naming his community, the article was in line with the journalistic and legal imperative to provide identifying facts that can differentiate between individuals, particularly when writing about those charged with crimes.

Indeed, many people have the same names as people charged with crimes reported in the Star. We cannot aim to mitigate confusion whenever such unfortunate coincidences occur.

But, we are not talking here about a crime committed by someone with a relatively common name, from a larger community, such as “Dave Smith of Toronto.” Indeed, “Itamar Cohen” is a distinctive name and the fact that the guilty man is of similar age and also from the same relatively small community of Thornhill makes this a unique situation. To my mind, fairness required some action by the Star, particularly given the widespread dissemination of this crime report via Google.

Of course, journalistic due diligence demanded that we take steps to verify the information the aggrieved Cohen told me. That took some time given that neither the FBI nor the SEC would provide a photo of the guilty Cohen, obviously the simplest means of differentiating between the two Thornhill men named Itamar Cohen. In the end, an SEC official did confirm that the photo that Cohen, 53, provided to the Star is not the image of the man who admitted to fraud.

We have now published a clarification and added a note to the Star’s online report of this stock fraud to make clear: Itamar Cohen, 53, of Thornhill is not that guy.

Copy that, Google.

publiced@thestar.ca