Former AHS CEO Strikes Back

Athana Mentzelopolous has filed legal action against two podcasters accused of harassment

Photo Credit - Jennifer Gauthier - The Globe & Mail

On March 27, 2026 the made for Hollywood saga surrounding the lawsuit by the former AHS CEO, Athana Mentzelopolous took yet another unprecedented turn.

How did we get here?

Athana Mentzelopolous is the former AHS CEO who was fired by the government, allegedly through improper channels and allegedly because of her investigations and findings into the “Corrupt Care” scandal.

Shortly after being terminated, Mentzelopolous launched a $1.7 million lawsuit for wrongful termination in February of 2025.

What has since unfolded has been a story of alleged corruption into the highest levels of government, alleged harassment of the former CEO, a former AHS board member, journalists, and more.

Beginning in May of 2025, self described political fixer and “ratfucker”, David Wallace and former journalist Difiore began a series of podcasts ostensibly trying to tell “the other side of the Corrupt Care story”.

But the content that Wallace and Difiore produced quickly became the center of significant safety concerns for a number of the subjects of their podcasts.

Beginning in May of 2025, both Wallace and Difiore produced content that was, by any reasonable measure, extremely critical of the former AHS CEO.

The “Brokedown” & Harassment

In July of 2025, a strange overlap occurred between the apparent stalking of a Globe and Mail reporter and the content produced by Wallace and Difiore.

Even more bizarre, the X account that was the apparent source of the stalking of the journalist was a blatant parody of The Breakdown called “The Brokedown”.

The Brokedown used the same graphics and branding as The Breakdowns social media and was seen by many as a clear attempt to discredit and confuse people while intimidating its subjects.

The Brokedown was only active for a short period before it was suspended, but in that time it also attempted to discredit former UCP MLA and Minister of Infrastructure Peter Guthrie by showing an apparent screenshot of a hockey ticket transfer to Guthrie that bizarrely appears to be a screen that would only be available to the original owners owners of the tickets, the corporate entity at the centre of the scandal, MHCare.

In July, after the Breakdown discovered that James Difiore had been found to be a significant threat to public safety by the Ontario Review Board following a criminal case where he had been found not criminally responsible on account on mental disorder, The Breakdown published this series of posts on X.

Immediately following those posts, host of The Breakdown, Nate Pike also became the subject of implied and direct threats, as well as denigration and intimidation by both Wallace and Difiore, including complaints to his employer and his professional college, both of which were dismissed as unfounded.

In June of 2025, Wallace and Difiore then turned their attention to a former AHS board member, Sandy Edmonstone. Through a series of podcasts and posts, Wallace in particular alleged that Edmonstone had been engaged in extra-marital affairs and began to make implied threats that they were going to publicly embarrass him.

In a particularly bizarre turn, according to an affidavit later filed by Edmonstone in November of 2025, the alleged campaign against him came to his attention when a former attorney general for the province of Alberta forwarded text messages.

From the sworn affadavit of Sandy Edmonstone

Those text messages to the former Attorney General allegedly originated from a number that would later be linked to the account that harassed the Globe and Mail journalist.

That account was again The Brokedown.

From the sworn affadavit of Sandy Edmonstone

That affadavit was filed in support of an application for a rare type of legal order called an Anton Piller Order.

An Anton Piller order is a court order that provides the right to search premises and seize evidence without prior warning.

Edmonstones application was successful and the search was conducted on December 16th, 2025.

While the results of the search remain sealed, one of the unforeseen twists in the process of the devices of Wallace and Difiore being seized and searched was that when searched, both Wallace and Difiore contacted an Edmonton based lawyer, Brian Ward.

Brian Ward has an extensive history working with Sam Mraiche and was actually the lawyer who responded to The Breakdown’s request for comment in the initial runup to The Breakdown’s “Skybox Scandal” episode.

But wait, there’s more...

Shortly after that search became public news, on January 16th, the Western Standard ran a story that detailed they had been approached in September by Wallace and the CEO of a risk management firm who set up multiple meetings with Brian Ward and MHCare employee Blayne Iskiw.

There are a lot of screenshots and loose threads in that article, but perhaps the most stunning revelation is the claim by that risk management CEO that…

“It's important to understand that [Ward] was acting on behalf of MHCare, which is why [Iskiw] was in the meeting subsequent to our first engagement.”

These stunning paragraphs seems to demonstrate that there was some form of a relationship between Ward, Iskiw, MHCare, Wallace and Difiore. The nature of that relationship has yet to be fully explored or defined in a court of law.

Further, screenshots included in the Western Standard article that were provided to the Western Standard by David Wallace seem to show David Wallace actively communicating with a representative of MHCare CEO, Sam Mraiche.

Screenshot from Western Standard Article

Screenshots also appear to show that Wallace was in contact with a nephew of Sam Mraiche, Ahmad Jebara.

Screenshots from Western Standard Article

Jebara was hired into a government role by Danielle Smith’s Chief of Staff, Marshall Smith in August of 2023, within days of Marshall Smith moving into a palatial home that was owned by Sam Mraiches sister.

Which brings us up to the end of March...

The Former CEO Strikes Back

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

According to court documents filed on March 27, 2026, the former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopolous is now taking steps to secure her own safety and prevent further harassment by the two podcasters.

Mentzelopolous filed both an application for interlocutory relief and a supporting affidavit, both of which contain shocking details of the alleged harassment that she was the target of for almost a full year.

In the application, Mentzelopolous asks specifically for the courts to force Wallace and Difiore to appear to explain why they should not be held in contempt of court for...

“conduct that is likely to interfere with the administration of justice, namely: deterring, harassing, molesting or influencing a prospective witness in relation to her testimony and in relation to the prosecution of her civil claim.”

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

But that’s just the start.

Mentzelopolous is also asking the court for what is in effect a restraining order and the removal of all of the content that Wallace and Difiore produced that is allegedly harassing her and her family.

Further, and perhaps potentially most consequentially, Mentzelopolous is also asking for the findings of the Anton Piller executed by Edmonstone as well as for the courts to compel Wallace and Difiore to reveal who they were working for when they produced their content.

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

Another Recap...

The application also provides another recap of Mentzelopolous version of the events of the “Corrupt Care” scandal...

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

The application also recaps the alleged circumstances of her firing.

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

The remainder of what follows in the application is a stunning look into an alleged campaign of harassment that the former AHS CEO was a target of that was sustained for the better part of a year.

As an example…

“Between May and December 2025, the podcasters referred to her as a “charlatan,” a “criminal,” a “thief,” a “dirtbag,” a “fraudster,” a “con lady,” a “bitch,” a “fuckin ’rip-off artist,” an “extortionist,” an “arsonist who poses as a fireman,” and a “lying sack of shit,” among many other reckless comments. Wallace also said that “the only thing [she’s] qualified for is, maybe, is a jizz mopper at a porno theatre.” Wallace suggested he would make sure she never worked again.”

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

Additionally, the application highlights a bizarre episode that was reported on by multiple news outlets where during one of Wallace and Difiore’s episodes they referred to information that could have conceivably only have been available to people with an inside knowledge of the government initiated investigation by Judge Raymond Wyant.

In that episode, Wallace allegedly claimed that he knew that Mentzelopolous had been avoiding an interview with Judge Wyant.

This prompted the former AHS CEO to write a letter to the deputy minister working on the investigation where she detailed the circumstances around the communication from the judge and how that information would have only been available to a extremely small group of people.

Mentzelopolous rebuked the suggestion that she had been avoiding the Judge and asserted instead that she had been pursuing an interview, but that the interview requests had been sent to someone who was out of the office and that despite having multiple other means by which to contact Mentzelopolous, no effort to do so appeared to have been made.

She also raised concerns that given this information had been leaked and then misrepresented it raised serious concerns about the integrity of the Wyant Investigation.

Mentzelopolous August 8, 2025 Letter

The circumstances surrounding the Wyant communication are more detailed in her supporting affadavit.

“In August 2025, after my counsel confirmed that Judge Wyant did indeed want to interview me, the interview was immediately scheduled. Wallace then said that I was delaying this questioning. It was true the questioning had been delayed, but it was on account of Judge Wyant’s circumstances, not my own, and it was not public information. I have only suspicions as to how someone like Wallace correctly learned that Judge Wyant’s emails to my counsel had not been responded to”

From the March 27th, 2026 filed sworn affidavit

The application also details the alleged release of her home address as well as threats of ongoing harassment and the implication that Russian assets were going to be involved in pursuing the CEO.

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

The application also cites the offer from Wallace to both Carrie Tait of The Globe and Mail and Nate Pike of The Breakdown for $10,000 to write a story on the former CEO’s tangential involvement in a scandal in BC that Wallace had allegedly been mischaracterizing for months

From the March 27th, 2026 filed application

A New Twist...?

Included in the affadavit is a screenshot that potentially has, if authentic, some deeply consequential implications...

From the March 27th, 2026 filed and sworn affidavit

That screenshot seems to be taken from a social media post that Wallace made in January of 2025.

Wallace has on multiple occasions on his own podcast stated that he was contacted in early 2025 by a private investigator on behalf of a news network.

Of note, Jaber was appointed to Invest Alberta by Danielle Smith shortly before he gifted the premier playoff skybox tickets in Vancouver.

Jaber was also Sam Mraiche’s accountant on a number of occasions, the Chief Financial Officer for MHCare in 2022, and is the subject of ongoing litigation surrounding allegations of financial impropriety in the construction of publicly funded treatment centres along with Sam Mraiche, Mraiche’s brother in law, the senior executive officer of the Métis Nation and former Alberta Health Services chief of procurement Jitendra Prasad.

The contents of both the application and the affidavit have yet to be tested in a court of law.

In the interest of full disclosure and to ensure transparency, The Breakdown would like to note that due to being the subject of similar alleged harassment and demonstrable lies, host and executive producer of The Breakdown Nate Pike, launched his own legal action against David Wallace and James Difiore on February 13, 2026. That statement of claim can be found at www.savethebreakdownab.ca.