Darryl Leroux files notice of appeal in $70,000 defamation judgement – APTN News
Apr 20, 2026
Professor and Indigenous identity researcher, Darryl Leroux is appealing a court ruling last month that he defamed a Saskatchewan professor.
The decision in March ordered Leroux to pay $70,000 in general damages after finding that Leroux had defamed University of Regina professor Michelle Coupal in three posts on Twitter, in a public presentation and in a text conversation.
In the 71 page decision, the judge wrote, “accusing someone of being a pretendian or of fraudulently holding themselves out to be Indigenous is a serious allegation in today’s world that brings with it serious repercussions to a person’s reputation and employment. These types of accusations should not be made flippantly. Dr. Leroux should know this better than anyone as by his own admission, he is one of the leading experts in Canada of ethnic fraud and raceshifting. He deposed that he does not make claims of false Indigenous ancestry lightly, but that is exactly what he did in this case.”
