{"id":693840,"date":"2026-05-26T01:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T01:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/693840\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T01:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T01:56:13","slug":"former-head-of-alberta-health-services-tells-edmonton-court-she-fears-for-her-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/693840\/","title":{"rendered":"Former head of Alberta Health Services tells Edmonton court she fears for her safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Threats, harassment and intimidation to the point that she fears for her safety \u2014 those are the allegations the former CEO of Alberta Health Services<\/a>, Athana Mentzelopoulos<\/a>, is making against two podcasters she says she\u2019s never met, but alleges are part of a targeted campaign to convince her to drop her wrongful dismissal suit against AHS and the Alberta government.<\/p>\n

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Menzelopoulos is suing for $1.7 million, accusing the health agency and the government of wrongfully terminating her contract in January 2024 after she began investigating allegations of sweetheart deals and high-level political interference<\/a> in government procurement contracts for goods and services worth hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:00
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFormer AHS CEO launches lawsuit against Alberta government\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

AHS and the provincial government have denied any wrongdoing and have filed a\u00a0counter-claim alleging Mentzelopoulos was fired for poor job performance.<\/a><\/p>\n

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In court Monday, Mentzelopoulos\u2019 lawyer, Brett Code, said the podcasters, James Di Fiore and David Wallace, have mentioned his client directly in their podcasts more than 300 times \u2014 saying things that threatened, ridiculed and dehumanized her.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Receive<\/p>\n

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Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.<\/p>\n

Code told the court the comments, including \u201cI\u2019m coming for you,\u201d that Wallace was going to her house with a shovel, that there was a $100,000 bounty for any criminal information about Mentzelopoulos and hers would be the next photo of a person on a milk carton (in reference to the photos of missing people sometimes being put on milk cartons) have made Mentzelopoulos fear for her security to the point police are taking steps to ensure her safety.<\/p>\n

Code is asking that DiFiore and Wallace be found in contempt of court, claiming their actions are a direct attempt to dissuade Mentzelopoulos from continuing with her lawsuit.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also asking for a restraining order, preventing the podcasters from contacting Mentzelopoulos, approaching or talking about her and he wants the previous podcasts allegedly targeting his client taken down.<\/p>\n

Code told court the podcasters have made reference to working for governments, so he\u2019s also requesting the release of the names of everyone who has supported them and has financially backed them.<\/p>\n

The defendants\u2019 lawyer, Craig Alcock, told the court a connection to anyone involved in the wrongful termination lawsuit hasn\u2019t been proven and he claims his clients\u2019 comments haven\u2019t been an attempt to intimidate Menzelopoulos, telling court, \u201cIt\u2019s not contemptuous to say mean things on a podcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The judge is expected to provide a decision within a week.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tReport on Alberta Health Services contract corruption allegations finds conflicts widely known\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Threats, harassment and intimidation to the point that she fears for her safety \u2014 those are the allegations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17225,253307,49,48,253308,2169,84,253309,714,82],"class_list":["post-693840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alberta-health-services","tag-athana-mentzelopoulos","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-corruptcare","tag-crime","tag-health","tag-mhcare","tag-politics","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}