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Superior Court Justice Timothy Ray could not have clearer in delivering his verdict Monday in connection with former construction boss Roland Eid.
“ICI (Construction) was a sham from early 2007 until its demise,” he said in delivering a summary of his 89-page decision. ICI was the construction company launched by Eid in 2006. It went bankrupt early in 2008 after Eid transferred $1.7 million from its coffers to a personal account in Beirut. The money was never returned.
Judge Ray found Eid guilty of ten counts of breaching the criminal code and Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. He found Eid had defrauded ICI creditors, causing the latter to suffer collective losses of $3.8 million. Judge Ray also found that Eid had “perpetrated a fraud by taking $1.7 million which were trust funds belonging to the subcontractors and suppliers out of Canada and beyond their reach.”
Eid’s defence had been that the money was to have been used to finance a new construction project in Lebanon and Syria. He claimed the Syrian government would match the money deposited in his Beirut account – money Eid said he would return to ICI in Ottawa.
Judge Ray didn’t buy any of this. Nor did he accept Eid’s explanation for why he kept the money in Lebanon. Eid had prepared a November 2007 document that purportedly showed he had sold ICI to Sebastien Dagenais, the company’s controller.
“While the (sale document) was clearly a sham,” Ray said, “it also made the matching funds scheme a sham.”
The judge also determined Eid had falsified accounts at ICI by keeping its accounts payable in “a separate manual file” – which would have the effect of improperly boosting the company’s health.
The yearlong trial considered evidence from 22 witnesses, including former ICI employees, insurance and bonding executives and other construction industry insiders.
“I found the evidence of all of the witnesses credible,” Ray said, “and I accept their account of the losses they sustained as a result of the defendant’s conduct.”
The judge made no note of what impact, if any, Eid’s history as an informant for the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service had on his thinking. Neither defence counsel Richard Addelman nor crown lawyer Moray Welch brought it to Ray’s attention. Welch said he had “no knowledge” Eid was engaged in CSIS activities.
Indeed, Eid did not appear as a witness during the trial, though he did launch a civil suit last year against CSIS and the RCMP, in which he alleged these organizations triggered the bankruptcy of ICI as retribution for Eid’s refusal to take on a “dangerous” CSIS assignment in Lebanon. He has never made clear how this would have been done.
In the end, whatever role he had with CSIS paled in comparison with the convoluted money trail he created in shifting money from Ottawa to Beirut. Eid stayed in Lebanon until 2012 – during which time he said he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a film about one of his favourite saints. This, during a period when ICI’s creditors were left to cope with the aftermath of the firm’s bankruptcy.
Ray’s ruling will give them some small comfort. Eid returns to court Friday for a sentencing hearing before Ray.
Email: jbagnall@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/James Bagnall
查看原文...
“ICI (Construction) was a sham from early 2007 until its demise,” he said in delivering a summary of his 89-page decision. ICI was the construction company launched by Eid in 2006. It went bankrupt early in 2008 after Eid transferred $1.7 million from its coffers to a personal account in Beirut. The money was never returned.
Judge Ray found Eid guilty of ten counts of breaching the criminal code and Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. He found Eid had defrauded ICI creditors, causing the latter to suffer collective losses of $3.8 million. Judge Ray also found that Eid had “perpetrated a fraud by taking $1.7 million which were trust funds belonging to the subcontractors and suppliers out of Canada and beyond their reach.”
Eid’s defence had been that the money was to have been used to finance a new construction project in Lebanon and Syria. He claimed the Syrian government would match the money deposited in his Beirut account – money Eid said he would return to ICI in Ottawa.
Judge Ray didn’t buy any of this. Nor did he accept Eid’s explanation for why he kept the money in Lebanon. Eid had prepared a November 2007 document that purportedly showed he had sold ICI to Sebastien Dagenais, the company’s controller.
“While the (sale document) was clearly a sham,” Ray said, “it also made the matching funds scheme a sham.”
The judge also determined Eid had falsified accounts at ICI by keeping its accounts payable in “a separate manual file” – which would have the effect of improperly boosting the company’s health.
The yearlong trial considered evidence from 22 witnesses, including former ICI employees, insurance and bonding executives and other construction industry insiders.
“I found the evidence of all of the witnesses credible,” Ray said, “and I accept their account of the losses they sustained as a result of the defendant’s conduct.”
The judge made no note of what impact, if any, Eid’s history as an informant for the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service had on his thinking. Neither defence counsel Richard Addelman nor crown lawyer Moray Welch brought it to Ray’s attention. Welch said he had “no knowledge” Eid was engaged in CSIS activities.
Indeed, Eid did not appear as a witness during the trial, though he did launch a civil suit last year against CSIS and the RCMP, in which he alleged these organizations triggered the bankruptcy of ICI as retribution for Eid’s refusal to take on a “dangerous” CSIS assignment in Lebanon. He has never made clear how this would have been done.
In the end, whatever role he had with CSIS paled in comparison with the convoluted money trail he created in shifting money from Ottawa to Beirut. Eid stayed in Lebanon until 2012 – during which time he said he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a film about one of his favourite saints. This, during a period when ICI’s creditors were left to cope with the aftermath of the firm’s bankruptcy.
Ray’s ruling will give them some small comfort. Eid returns to court Friday for a sentencing hearing before Ray.
Email: jbagnall@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/James Bagnall
查看原文...
