PART II
Part I of Constable Cadarette’s story covered her childhood and her entrance into the Ottawa Police Department (OPD). Part II continues from the beginning of her employment at the Police Department in November, 2006. During her first few months with her police officer coach, Cadarette started to get anonymous and disturbing phone calls when she returned home from work. The calls usually were a male who asked her: “Oh, you are here?” or “You just got home from so and so.” Cadarette initially laughed it off in the beginning but then text messages and emails started appearing noting where she had been, and items from her home and locker started disappearing. Cadarette was concerned enough that she mentioned it to her police officer coach, and started paying more attention to the strange occurrences.
At one point, Cadarette’s neighbor approached her and advised that they had seen three individuals. Cadarette recognized them as officers from OPD. It occurred to Cadarette that the three people were friends with her ex-boyfriend, with whom she had a very contentious relationship, and who was also a police officer.
She met with her Staff Sergeant on her day off at Perkins restaurant in the beginning of 2007, and explained to him the strange events of missing property and phone calls. The Staff Sergeant advised her not to worry, and “just do what she was told.”
In April of 2007, Cadarette was approached by a female Staff Sergeant who covertly looked around the locker room to see if anyone was listening, and then told Cadarette “I do not know why they are doing this to you.” This Staff Sergeant had been involved in Cadarette’s hiring process and Cadarette asked her “but if people know I am telling me the truth, why is no one standing up for me?” The Sergeant told Cadarette to go to her own Staff Sergeant, which she did. Cadarette then went further and notified an Inspector at OPD. Cadarette explained to the Inspector the anonymous text messages, emails, phone calls, missing items, and offered her phone records to the Inspector, but was rebuffed. Cadarette continued up the chain of command and went to the Chief of OPD. She divulged everything that was happening to her and included the contentious relationships with two ex-boyfriends, both police officers who may have been responsible for some of the harassment.
Shortly after meeting with the Chief of OPD, in the summer of 2007, on one of Cadarette’s days off, she was pumping gas in her car and got a call from Zoey Colburn, who was a civilian member of OPD. Colburn told Cadarette that she worked as an assistant to the Chief of OPD. Colburn asked to meet Cadarette, which happened at a restaurant, and Cadarette was introduced to Colburn and Lorene Waters, another civilian member of OPD who worked in Human Resources. Cadarette was told by Colburn that her gun was being taken away and it was being done under the direction of the Chief. Colburn stated that, per the Chief, Cadarette had to see a psychologist and would be transferred to the front desk at OPD, without her weapon. Cadarette notes that she kept contemporaneous notes of this meeting.
Cadarette started crying. She was not provided any paperwork and after thirty minutes left the meeting. Cadarette was still on probation at work and could be fired for any infraction, so she reported to desk duty, and reported to an address she was given for the psychologist. She was told where and when to meet the psychologist and it was always at noon in a room the size of a broom closet on the grounds of Ottawa University.
Since the meetings were always scheduled at lunchtime, no one was in the office that housed the broom closet-size room. Cadarette kept notes in her journal about the visits. “Dr. Frey” would be in the tiny room that held two folding chairs facing each other, and “Dr. Frey” always had a laptop on his lap, recording the meeting. Cadarette found out later that the real Dr. Frey had an office in the same building, but it was not a five by ten closet that also included a hospital bed.
The fake “Dr. Frey” asked about OPD, and Cadarette told him about the events that were occurring. According to Cadarette, she “was a mess and spewed everything” in the visits. “Dr. Frey” would arrive five minutes after Cadarette arrived, and the meetings were about an hour long, ending at 1 pm. Cadarette believes that the time was picked because there was never anyone around during the lunch hour.
“Dr. Frey” also showed up at Cadarette’ s workplace 2 or 3 times, just staring at her, before taking the OPD elevator upstairs. The meetings were set up by Colburn. “Dr. Frey” sometimes canceled meetings at the last minute. Cadarette stated that she felt “Dr. Frey ” was always late to the meetings to make sure he did not run into anyone he knew in the building. The meetings took place in September and October of 2007. “Dr. Frey” drove a blue minivan, and had a personality that was far from warm and comforting. The fake “Dr. Frey” administered a MMPI-2, a test meant to measure a person’s psychological state, noting that he was trying to find “the possibility of paranoid personality disorder.” In administering the test, “Dr. Frey” drew out deeply personal details about Cadarette’s life. The MMPI-2 did not paint a picture of any paranoia, or psychopathology of any kind. The report did, however, paint a picture of the writer presenting himself as a psychologist who exhibited absolutely no ability to comment on any areas of psychology or ability to treat a patient.
Cadarette met with “Dr. Frey” in the small room a total of five times, and toward the end, Cadarette felt there was something wrong with “Dr. Frey” and the room in which they met. Cadarette told her Sergeant and Colburn that she suspected something was wrong, and told them there was something funny going on with “Dr. Frey.” At the fifth meeting, Cadarette presented “Dr. Frey” with a document that explained Criminal Conversion of Impersonation with Intent (CCII). Cadarette also gave the CCII document to her superiors at OPD and to Colburn.
After Cadarette provided “Dr. Frey” the CCII document, she never saw him again, nor Colburn. Her superiors never initiated an investigation, nor took any of the phone logs showing “Dr. Frey’s” calls. A couple of weeks later, Cadarette got approval to rejoin the force with her gun. Shortly afterwards, Cadarette started applying at other police departments and was accepted at Peel Regional Police (PRP), four hours from Ottawa in 2008. OPD sent satisfactory performance evaluations to the Peel Regional Police, and only later did Cadarette find out there was a personnel lineage between OPD and PRP.
Throughout the following years, Cadarette was following the real Dr. Frey in the media. It was difficult because Cadarette was financially ruined, but she never stopped fighting. Work at PRP was difficult because people would refer to her as “crazy”, because she would not drop her accusations against a false psychologist in her forced Fitness for Duty exam.
By 2019 Cadarette retained an attorney and got her medical records from her time in Ottawa and they showed no meetings with a psychologist. Cadarette had saved everything from her time at OPD including logs with her notes. Records were requested from OPD who refused to provide any records. The attorney reached out to Dr. Frey who advised he did not write or send the reports, nor was the signature his, and whoever filled out the report was committing an unethical act. The tone in the letter about Cadarette was unduly harsh, according to Dr. Frey.
Cadarette had an opportunity to meet Dr. Frey and it was recorded and played on local television. For fifteen years, Cadarette has been telling the truth, and people have been calling her crazy. She is currently on medical leave with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Cadarette has been subjected to the cruelest form of retaliation for her allegations against bullying, and sexual harassment, the Fitness for Duty exam. What propelled the Fitness for Duty exam from cruel to evil was the fact that it was used to gaslight and harass Cadarette for over fifteen years.
A GoFundMe fundraiser for Cadarette can be found here.
Further information on her case can be read at “Police officer assessed by fake psychologist after complaining of sexual harassment.”