Who are these people? They supposedly worked for a Toronto police board member's companies

Until recently, a black-and-white photo of a woman holding her face in her hands was used to depict Mary Ellen Steinam — also known as Ellen Steinam — across social media and on the website of a marketing company founded by Toronto Police Service Board member Nadine Spencer. 

Steinam worked as chief operating officer of Spencer's company BrandEQ for more than a decade, according to her LinkedIn page. Her profile said she was based in New York and had previously held other prominent marketing jobs at Nestle and Saatchi & Saatchi as far back as 1994. 

On Facebook and X, she shared posts and photos of Spencer — cheering on her boss and BrandEQ. 

But despite Steinam's online presence, it's unclear if she actually exists.

A search of the LexisNexis database, which combs through 84 billion public records, found no record of anyone with either variation of Steinam's name living and working in New York state — or anywhere else in the United States. 

Reverse image searches also revealed that Steinam's supposed headshot appears on dozens of unrelated websites as a stock image — as do two other purported photos of her shared on Facebook. 

A CBC Toronto investigation discovered Steinam is one of three seemingly fabricated or misrepresented employees who have appeared on the websites of BrandEQ and BrandEQ Black over the past decade. The other two involve the photos of identifiable but unaffiliated people being used to represent staff under a different name.

All sign of the three employees vanished from the websites after CBC Toronto asked Spencer about them late last month. Steinam's LinkedIn page, which features the same photo of her, was also taken down within the last week.

In a series of email statements provided through her lawyer, Spencer "categorically" denied that Steinam and one of the other employees were fabricated. 

"Although Mary is no longer an employee of BrandEQ, your due diligence should be able to verify that these are not 'fabricated' people," said lawyer Audrey DeMarsico in an email.

"BrandEQ will not be sharing confidential employee information, but out of respect for the individuals involved, the company will advise them of your inquiry."

DeMarsico said if the employees wanted to provide a statement or evidence directly, she and Spencer would ask them to do so by Tuesday evening. CBC Toronto did not hear from any of them. 

The statements also said some "template content" on BrandEQ Black's site should not have been published and that previous archived versions of the BrandEQ website came from a time when it "had not been updated from theme stock images."

CBC Toronto's research included reviewing older, archived versions of the sites going back to 2013.