Sen. Mike Duffy. Photo: The Canadian Press Files Suspended Sen. Mike Duffy has denied a familial connection to a woman in Peru who claims, in a report in Maclean’s magazine, to be his love child.
In an email, Duffy said the allegations by the woman’s mother — that he is the biological father — are false.
“The Maclean’s story contains untrue allegations, made by a convicted narcotics smuggler, and which go back more than 30 years,” Duffy wrote.
“I will respond to any legal process from Peru in an appropriate manner. I will have no further comment.”
Maclean’s reported Tuesday that the woman, Karen Duffy, is asking the courts in Lima, where she lives, to formally name Duffy as her father, or order him to provide a DNA sample if he believes she is lying.
Karen Duffy and her mother, Yvette Benites (Maclean’s Magazine)
The article says that Karen Duffy is not seeking any money from Mike Duffy, but rather wants the courts to make official what she has been told and believed for years: that the former TV journalist-turned-politician is indeed her father.
She did not respond Tuesday to questions posed by Postmedia News through her lawyer.
The allegations are the latest legal twist in the Duffy saga. He has been the subject of a police investigation into his Senate expense claims, including questions about his housing claims and consulting contracts. He has not been charged — a decision on that now rests in the hands of Crown prosecutors reviewing the RCMP investigation of Duffy — nor have any of the allegations against him been tested in court.
Duffy’s personal life has remained out of the spotlight in the ongoing Senate scandal, except for questions about his health: During the suspension debates, he has discussed his heart condition.
According to Maclean’s, Karen Duffy claims she was conceived after an affair between Mike Duffy and her mother, a convicted drug carrier who spent time in the notorious, now-defunct Prison for Women in Kingston, Ont.
Mike Duffy shields his eyes as he arrives at the Senate on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
Yvette Benites told the magazine she met Mike Duffy in 1981 when, while awaiting deportation to Peru, she was sent to a halfway house in Ottawa. Mike Duffy’s late sister, Moira, asked Benites to deliver a birthday present to her brother, then an Ottawa journalist with the CBC.
In the article, Benites claims to have had a romance with Mike Duffy, who was then going through a divorce. Shortly before her deportation, the magazine said, Benites found out she was pregnant and believed Mike Duffy was the father. On Karen Duffy’s Peruvian birth certificate, Benites listed Mike Duffy as the father, but incorrectly listed his middle name as Clayton, not Dennis, the magazine reported.
It wasn’t until Karen Duffy was a teen that she became interested in locating her father, Maclean’s wrote. The search, however, began in earnest only after Mike Duffy was appointed to the Senate in late 2008 by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Even if the court rules in favour of Karen Duffy, it’s unlikely it would have the authority to reach Mike Duffy in Canada.
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