The Dean Blundell Show is no stranger to controversy, and they have the CRTC complaints to prove it. There’s the time Steve-O of Jackass fame came into the studio and did a “trick” involving duct-tape and his testicles; and the time caller phoned-in to share her tale of shredding off one of her nipples with a weed-whacker while nude sunbathing; and the time Blundell made fun of the drowning death of former Lativian NHL prospect Kristians Pelss; and of course, most recently, the time Blundell and co-host Todd Shapiro commended a man who assaulted a Afghanistan war protester on Remembrance Day, leading to Shapiro being relieved of his duties at the show.
Apparently they’ve run afoul of radio (and legal) standards yet again. Since September, Dean Blundell Show producer Derek Welsman has been serving as on the foreman on a jury in the case of Joshua Dowholis, a 31-year-old HIV-positive man on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting three men he met at Spa Excess, a Carlton St. bathhouse. During the trial, Welsman was warned about making public references to the case after he tweeted about the case and visited the Blundell Show studio and cracked jokes on-air about “butt love” and other charming expressions. The real trouble came post-trial, however, when Welsman and Blundell made a string of homophobic jokes regarding the defendant and many of the witnesses. The Star has catalogued them.
Dowholis’s defence may seek a mistrial. Meanwhile, sentencing in the case has been postponed.
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Jordan Sowunmi is a writer and editor at the Toronto Standard. He is on Twitter: @jordanisjoso
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