Eric Lamaze’s brain cancer has been in remission since 2021. A bookkeeper wrote the fake letters that his attorneys submitted to courts in Canada and the United States claiming Lamaze received treatment from two neurosurgeons at the Chirec Cancer Institute. He really did undergo surgery this summer at a Chirec hospital—but for throat cancer and conducted by a plastic surgeon.

Those assertions by the Canadian Olympic champion come from the transcript of a September court hearing that was recently made public as part of Lamaze’s appeal to a November ruling that he owes the former co-owners of several horses approximately $1.4 million.

That hearing is also the foundation of an appeal by Lamaze’s new attorney, who said he was “fundamentally denied due process” because his previous attorney withdrew from representing him at the same hearing, just before the judge and the plaintiffs’ attorneys questioned him about the fake letters and his cancer diagnosis.

The case involves several horses, including recent Pan American Games team silver medalist Nikka VD Bisschop, a horse Lamaze purchased in partnership with investors Lorna Guthrie and Jeffrey Brandmaier. The two sued him in January, claiming, among other things, that Lamaze misrepresented the purchases of two horses, “Nikka” and a second called Newberry Balia NL, so that they paid more than their agreed-upon half cost of each, and then sold their half-share of Nikka to another client, the Rein family, under false pretenses, ultimately reimbursing them only $70,000 of the mare’s final $2.27 million sale price.

The suit was progressing through circuit court in Palm Beach County, Florida, when the plaintiffs in September requested that the judge strike all Lamaze’s arguments and counterclaims and find in their favor after the doctors’ letters were determined to be forgeries. They argued that those documents and all other references to his cancer treatment during the case constituted fraud upon the court by Lamaze and his former attorney George Coe.

Florida Circuit Court Judge Maxine Cheesman held a hearing on that matter, and on a request filed by Coe to withdraw from representing Lamaze, Sept. 22. She granted Coe’s request at the beginning of the hearing.

Appearing via Zoom, Lamaze told Cheesman that Julie Wilson, whom he called his secretary and bookkeeper, had written the letter stating he had glioblastoma and was a patient at the Chirec Cancer Institute in Belgium and sent it to Coe.

Secretary Blamed For Fake Letter

“It was written by my secretary, behind—without me knowing about it,” Lamaze testified, according to the hearing transcript.

“It was she [who] pushed me to have a letter for you, and she played it down a lot, like this was not a letter that was—” he added later. “That they needed it for you, because we had moved a date forward or something like that, because I was going to have surgery, and she played it down very casual. And George wasn’t the one that called me for it.”

Asked whether he thought it was a problem to submit an untrue document to the court, Lamaze countered that the letter was not wholly false.

“[T]here was some truth into this letter,” he said. “It’s not that the letter is completely untrue. Not at all.”

He explained he did not have a craniotomy, as one letter indicated, but said he was a patient at the Chirec Cancer Center and had been diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2017. 

Not Currently Fighting Brain Cancer

Asked by the judge when he “got rid” of his brain tumor, Lamaze answered, “Around 2021, already, I was—the tumor had shrunk to almost nothing, and then I was treated—”

Cheesman asked, “So in 2023, when we had hearings in the court, and there was conversations about you having to do surgery, a brain surgery, that was not true, because it was already gone in 2021, right?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Lamaze replied.

Lamaze said he does have throat cancer and underwent two surgeries over the summer to have his “voice box” removed. The voice box, or larynx, is located in the neck and contains the vocal cords.

During the hearing, Lamaze claimed he had been a patient of Chirec Hospital for about five years and identified his main doctor as Dr. Axel de Vooght. 

The doctor, a plastic surgeon, previously had been named in Lamaze’s Canadian case, when his attorney there submitted a Feb. 23 letter from de Vooght confirming the rider was a patient and that “[f]urther surgery (multidisciplinary team) is needed very soon to address his medical issue which is an evolutional condition.” According to the doctor’s website, he specializes in facial surgery, such as facelifts and rhinoplasty, breast surgery, and body contouring. He performs procedures that require hospitalization at the Chirec hospital group-owned Delta Hospital in Brussels.

Lamaze said the only doctor’s letter he personally tried to submit to the Florida court, unsuccessfully, was one from de Vooght, on Feb. 24. At that time, through Coe, he asked the judge to lift a freeze on his assets, which Cheesman previously instituted at the plaintiffs’ request in the high-dollar lawsuit. From that first filing in the case, Lamaze’s attorney referred specifically to the rider fighting brain cancer:

“Defendant Eric Lamaze has been receiving treatment in Belgium for a brain tumor for the past several years,” Coe wrote in February. “He needs to return to Belgium for surgery, which is a follow-up to a previous surgery. He does not have a Florida physician for this care and cannot realistically receive his treatment in Florida, as some of the treatments he receives are only available through limited medical trials or are not approved for use in the United States. At this time, however, Mr. Lamaze cannot travel to Belgium for his surgery because his bank account has been frozen …”

Judge: ‘Deliberate, Complete Acts Of Fraud’

In issuing her default judgment in November, Cheesman did not mince words in her assessment of Lamaze’s conduct:

“[T]he acts and conduct of the Lamaze Defendants’ fraud presented herein were not mere mistakes, accidents or inadvertencies,” she wrote. “They were deliberate, complete and major acts of fraud upon this Court. They require the most serious of sanctions, including the striking of Lamaze Defendants’ pleadings.”

“Mr. Lamaze also presented deliberately false testimony about his medical condition, including alleged cancer, which was apparently long cured before the claims of cancer were ever made in this Court.”

Florida 15th Circuit Court Judge Maxine Cheesman

She referred specifically to the fraudulent documents as well as his and his attorney’s repeated references to Lamaze’s health over the course of the case. “Mr. Lamaze also presented deliberately false testimony about his medical condition, including alleged cancer, which was apparently long cured before the claims of cancer were ever made in this Court, in attempts to improperly manipulate and deceive the Court, intentionally affect and delay the judicial process and negatively affect opposing parties,” Cheesman wrote.

Lamaze Appeals Ruling

Since the September hearing, Lamaze has retained a new attorney, Brad Kelsky. On Nov. 30, Kelsky filed an appeal to Cheesman’s ruling in Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal, and the following day he filed a motion for re-hearing before Cheesman.

In his motion for re-hearing, Kelsky argued that because Coe withdrew from representing Lamaze at the same hearing in which Cheesman considered Guthrie and Brandmaier’s request for a default judgment in their favor, and he did so before Lamaze dialed into the hearing 20 minutes late, Lamaze was “fundamentally denied due process.” Additionally, because he was unrepresented, “most of the exhibits admitted before the Court were genuinely inadmissible, not objected to, constituted hearsay and/or lacked foundation,” his new attorney wrote.

“Next, the Court called Mr. Lamaze to testify at the hearing (while unrepresented and without the opportunity to have representation),” Kelsky continued. “The Court asked Mr. Lamaze what his ‘opinion’ was based upon argument—not testimony—of Plaintiffs’ counsel. The Court inquired of Mr. Lamaze about direct communications Mr. Lamaze had with his attorney raising the specter of invasion of attorney-client privilege.”

Kelsky noted later in the filing that Lamaze wasn’t “offered the opportunity to object to a question nor was he instructed he had the capacity to do so.”

Kelsky added, “Mr. Lamaze distinctly testified at the hearing that ‘I can’t even get an attorney at this point. It’s not a fair game.’ ” 

“Mr. Lamaze distinctly testified at the hearing that ‘I can’t even get an attorney at this point. It’s not a fair game.’ ” 

Brad Kelsky, attorney for Eric Lamaze

The court erred, he argued, in not immediately postponing the hearing to a later date when Lamaze and the corporate entities—his businesses, which are also being sued—were no longer represented by an attorney.

While the appeal and motion for rehearing are considered in their respective courts, the initial case is moving toward a jury trial between Lamaze and the Rein family, who initially were drawn into the case as defendants but since have reached a mediation agreement with Guthrie and Brandmaier and now have a crossclaim pending against Lamaze. They allege he misrepresented his ownership agreement with Guthrie and Brandmaier going into her sale to the Reins and breached Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by acting as a dual agent in the $2.7 million sale without the knowledge or consent of the other parties involved.