Rampage (20 page)

Fabrikant would not allow a “genius” like himself to be bossed around. In February 1992, he began a concerted campaign of email harassment, accusing the faculty association of betraying him. He dismissed Rose Sheinin’s warning that he was abusing the communication system by stating that there were no rules forbidding his activities. His emails, including transcripts of conversations he had secretly audiotaped, began flooding the inboxes of bewildered academics everywhere. Professors who had never even heard the name “Valery Fabrikant” were now drawn into his one-man war against his colleagues, whose alleged crimes ranged from conflict of interest to fraud. He repeatedly baited the university to take legal action against him. In one email, Fabrikant wrote, “I am no longer afraid of anything or anybody. We all have to die one day. Whenever I die, I shall die an honest person. I cannot fight all the crooks in the world, but I shall not rest until the bogus scientists in this university are exposed”
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That March, workplace violence expert Frema Engel advised the executive assistant to the rector that there was “reason to be concerned and I would take [Fabrikant’s] behaviour very seriously.… The worst-case scenario is that he would act out his anger, become violent and either harm a member or members of the university or himself.” The executive assistant would later testify that she forwarded this letter to Rose Sheinin — a claim that the vice-rector academic would dispute. In fact, Sheinin had mailed a letter to Fabrikant himself, reading, “You have made very serious allegations against members of the University community, thereby causing significant disturbance.… You shall … immediately cease and desist from making these types of unsubstantiated allegations by any means.” Fabrikant rebutted the warning via email, accusing Sheinin of breaching due process by not including a standard complaint from the dean. Sheinin responded by doing just that.

Valery Fabrikant’s twisted behaviour had now seeped from the confines of academia into the local media. He was quoted in the
Montreal Gazette
as declaring that, after living in Canada for twelve years, he had not met a single honest Canadian. This wider exposure caused the alleged rape victim from 1982 to contact Sheinin and inform her that Fabrikant was capable of horrendous violence. Terrified, she refused to go on record, and died of a brain embolism two years later.

In early April, Tom Sankar and Srikanta Swamy received letters from Fabrikant threatening to sue them. Sankar’s letter read:

      You are listed as co-author [of 35] publications of mine though your scientific contribution to them was zero.… I hereby request that you write … letters of retraction that you did not make any scientific contribution to those publications.… Failure to do so will result in a legal action against you.
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The worst employee in the history of mechanical engineering made good on his threats, filing lawsuits against both men. Tom Sankar was surely cursing the day he had warmly invited the pitiful little “dissident” into his office.

Fantasies of Unlimited Power

At the end of the winter term, Sam Osman discovered that Fabrikant had artificially raised his students’ grades by eight percent. By now, Fabrikant had become so consumed with his personal vendetta that he was nearly completely neglecting his academic pursuits. On June 23, he filed a request with Osman’s secretary to carry a pistol on campus, which was understandably rejected. Fabrikant had likely never expected his wish to be granted, and wanted to scare people. Having learned of Fabrikant’s sinister request, Sheinin and several other members of the administration wrote to Kenniff:

      [Valery Fabrikant] presents an immediate and continuing threat to members of the University community.… We suggest that he be suspended indefinitely and that he be forbidden to enter any University buildings until such time that the suspension is lifted. As a condition for reinstatement in the University, Dr. Fabrikant must be required to produce a statement from a psychiatrist (chosen by the University) attesting to his mental stability.
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Astonishingly, Kenniff refused to use his emergency powers, citing a lack of evidence of Fabrikant’s misconduct. Later he claimed to have tried to contact the administrators to suggest an alternative course of action, but had learned that they had gone on holiday. Whatever the case, this breakdown in communication would prove to be deadly.

When Fabrikant sent out an email accusing two co-workers of being parasites, then followed up with lawsuits claiming they had forced him to name them as co-authors on his articles, the university administrators put their collective foot down. He was given a clear warning that if he did not restrain himself immediately, there would be consequences. To a narcissist of Fabrikant’s calibre, this was like attempting to douse a fire with gasoline: the flames of his hatred roared to new heights. Little did he know that he was burning himself in the immolation.

When it became obvious that there was an unwillingness to terminate Fabrikant’s position, the administration offered him the prospect of early retirement with two years’ salary. The fifty-two-year-old responded by asking for ten. When they upped it to three he countered with thirteen. Obviously, there was no possibility of negotiating with Fabrikant. He thrived on confrontation. Instead, in August, the university went on the counterattack. After sending out defamatory emails directed at Quebec Supreme Court Justice Alan Gold, Fabrikant was charged with being in contempt of court, and ordered to stand trial on August 25. Lawsuits stung him like hornets, and he responded by filing more. To cap it off, he no longer had any support whatsoever from the faculty association. Instead, they had installed video cameras in the offices of the Concordia University Faculty Association to keep tabs on him.

Like fellow narcissistic bully Adolf Hitler, Fabrikant’s ambitions of power and conquest had fallen short of his strategic abilities, and his nerves were beginning to suffer. In the week leading up to August 24, 1992, Fabrikant was bombarded with numerous threats and court orders. He received a second cautionary letter from Rose Sheinin on Wednesday, August 19, concerning his harassing emails. On August 21, Concordia’s external legal counsel sent Fabrikant a formal notification that his job was at risk. Whether he saw the letter or not is unknown; however, that same day he ranted about his upcoming court hearing over email: “[V]ery soon I might be in jail for contempt of court. I have dared to say publicly that the court is lawless and corrupt. If you hear that I have committed suicide in jail or was a victim of an accident, do not believe [it].”
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Meanwhile, Fabrikant’s wife, Maya Tyker, obtained two pistols that same afternoon, entrusting them to her husband. She had purchased them through a catalogue, ostensibly to practise shooting at a local range. Ultimately, the targets they would be pointed at were flesh, blood, and bone.

Lacks Empathy

On Monday August 24, 1992, Valery Fabrikant made good on his threats. Just before 2:30 p.m., he strode into the Henry F. Hall Building dressed in sunglasses, a dark suit, and a white shirt and carrying a briefcase. Fabrikant took the escalator to the engineering department on the ninth floor and searched the vicinity for Sam Osman and Dean Swamy. Unable to locate them, he proceeded to his own office to await a scheduled visit from Michael Hogben. The fifty-three-year-old president of the CUFA arrived on time for their appointment, and was reaching to pass a letter to Fabrikant when the nutty professor produced a .38-calibre pistol. He fired three times, striking Hogben in the head, neck, and back, dropping him to the floor. Fabrikant switched the .38for a German-made Meb 7.65-millimetre semi-automatic pistol, and then hid a Belgian Bersa 6.35-millimetre in his belt.

Hearing a male voice shout from nearby, Fabrikant stepped into the corridor to search for the source. He found his colleague Aaron Jaan Saber in his adjoining office, and shot the forty-six-year-old through his skull and side, causing fatal injuries. Exiting, he fired at sixty-six-year-old secretary Elizabeth Horwood as she fled, winging her thigh. Fabrikant made his way across the ninth floor to the office of Phovios Ziogas, chair of the electrical and computer engineering department. Ziogas, who was engaged in a conversation with Otto Schwelb, looked on in surprise as Fabrikant unleashed two bullets at him. One of them tore through Ziogas’s abdomen, severing two major arteries and permanently damaging his kidney. As the injured Ziogas clung to Fabrikant, Schwelb grappled the gunman, disarming him. Fabrikant fled, and Schwelb immediately turned his attention to his wounded colleague. Ziogas would later die from his injuries.

Retrieving the Bersa from his belt, Valery Fabrikant set off for Srikanta Swamy’s office. When civil engineering professor Matthew Douglass attempted to talk him out of it, the gunman reciprocated by blasting him four times through his head and raised hands, killing him. Finally, with the hallways of the ninth floor all but empty, Fabrikant shepherded a security guard and professor into one of the offices, locking the door behind him. Picking up a telephone, he dialled 911 and proudly proclaimed that he had “made several murders.” He demanded to speak with a television reporter. Over the course of his hour-long phone conversation, Fabrikant dropped his guard, and placed the pistol down momentarily to switch the position of the phone. His captives seized the opportunity, the professor kicking the firearm away while the security guard wrestled Fabrikant to the floor.

Upon entering the building, the police immediately took the gunman into custody. Searching the crime scene, they discovered the lifeless body of Michael Hogben in Fabrikant’s office, the letter still gripped in his hand. Blood had sullied the paper, staining its feckless formality with the reality of unchecked primal aggression. If Fabrikant had bothered to read it, he would have learned that the CUFA had decided to limit his access to its offices because he was causing “considerable distress” to its employees. Words on paper. Over the thirteen years Valery Fabrikant had terrorized Concordia with threats of violence, the university had sent him many such documents, trusting that the pen was mightier than the sword. Fabrikant’s philosophy was much more flexible; depending on the situation, he would assert his will with words or bullets. Now his options would be limited to the former, though this would by no means slow him down.

In a pathetic and untimely display, Patrick Kenniff finally fired Fabrikant seventeen days after the massacre, writing:

      Events before, on, and subsequent to August 24, 1992, demonstrate clearly that you constitute an immediate and continuing threat to this university, its faculty, staff and students…. Furthermore you are no longer accomplishing your duties as a faculty member.
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Apparently the university didn’t think much of Kenniff’s leadership abilities, and he was also fired from his position of rector, taking a $580,000 severance package along with him. Ironically, the gunman had been right all along: Concordia in the early nineties was a haven for injustice. In their 1994 report
Integrity in Scholarship
, an independent committee of inquiry appointed by the school’s Board of Governors found significant violations in Concordia’s academic integrity and “confirmed the validity of a number of Dr. Fabrikant’s more specific allegations.”
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Valery Fabrikant stood trial in 1993 on four counts of murder in what would be arguably the most bizarre and eccentric trial in Canadian history. Found in contempt of court on six occasions, and after firing ten attorneys, Fabrikant opted to act as his own defence lawyer. He repeatedly raised pedantic and frivolous points throughout the proceedings, much to the annoyance of the judge. One observer noted that Fabrikant would often glance around excitedly at the onlookers whenever he said something “clever.” Five months later, he was convicted on every count, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Valery Fabrikant is currently incarcerated at the Archambault institution in Sainte-Anne-des-Pleines, Quebec, where he continues his academic pursuits and maintains a website devoted to his personal war against the system. Declared a vexatious litigant by the Quebec Superior Court in 2000, his status as such was upheld during a 2007 review.

Valery Fabrikant’s court appearances, prison writings, and lawsuits are so plentiful that they would necessitate an entire book to detail. As tempting as it is to describe his abundance of eccentricities, I will instead refer you to several online links that will be infinitely more useful.

Web Links (for further info)

Fabrikant’s trial (audio only):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwfqxZ35iEU

Fabrikant’s personal website:
http://fabrikant.webs.com

Integrity in Scholarship: A Report to Concordia University
(independent inquiry explores veracity of Fabrikant’s claims):
http://archives.concordia.ca/sites/default/files/uploaded-documents/pages /2011/07/26/Arthurs_report.pdf

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

According to the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition
(DSM IV), the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder are “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

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