Court of Appeal for Ontario
BEFORE: Doherty, Rouleau & Epstein JJ.A.
BETWEEN
Her Majesty the Queen Respondent
and
Laurence Heartz Appellant
COUNSEL: James N. Frost, for the appellant Joanne Stuart, for the respondent
HEARD: June 11, 2014
On appeal from the conviction entered by Justice Croll of the Superior Court of Justice, dated June 20, 2011.
APPEAL BOOK ENDORSEMENT
1Counsel for the appellant accepts, as we think he must, the trial judge’s findings and her credibility assessments. He argues that the verdict is unreasonable based on three considerations:
- The evidence of different methodologies used in the various transactions when compared to the methodology used in the two days where the appellant was captured in the photo on video:
We see no evidence of differences in the methodology, only an absence of evidence of some of the specifics of the methodology of some of the other withdrawal transactions.
- The absence of exclusive opportunity:
The judge did not suggest that the appellant had exclusive opportunity. However, the fact that the appellant was caught misapprehending the funds on two days and had knowledge of the victim’s P.I.N. number distinguished the appellant’s situation from that of the other tenant, the other person with an opportunity to commit the offence. The claim that the other tenant may have committed the offence is hardly viable on the totality of the evidence and gives no cause to doubt the reasonableness of this verdict.
- The “logistics” suggest that the appellant could not have misappropriated the funds:
The so called “logistics” seem to us to be primarily concerned with the likelihood that the withdrawals could have gone on as they did without the victim’s knowledge, and not with identifying the perpetrator, assuming there was a fraud. Any problems arising from the logistics would apply equally to the appellant and the other tenant. Once the trial judge accepted that the withdrawals were unauthorized, the “logistics” tend to point to the appellant, the person with the P.I.N. number and the access to the banking documents, and not to anyone else.
2The verdict is not unreasonable. The appeal is dismissed.