Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2018-02-14 Docket: C61316 Judges: MacPherson, Huscroft and Trotter JJ.A.

Between

Her Majesty the Queen Respondent

and

Lawrence Watts Appellant

Counsel

Appellant: Lawrence Watts, in person

Respondent: Xenia Proestos and Yael Pressman

Heard: February 6, 2018

Appeal Information

On appeal from the conviction entered on October 22, 2015 and the sentence imposed on June 6, 2016 by Justice Stephen Bale of the Superior Court of Justice, sitting with a jury.

Appeal Book Endorsement

[1] The appellant was convicted of a significant fraud following a 23-day jury trial. The fraud involved preparation of tax returns for 241 taxpayers, each of whom claimed non-existent business losses from non-existent businesses. The purpose of the fraud was to obtain refunds of taxes paid previously to Revenue Canada ("CRA").

[2] The fraud would have resulted in losses of over $10.5 million had it not been discovered. As it is, the fraud resulted in wrongful federal tax refunds of over $2.7 million. The appellant took a 20% cut of the taxes refunded as his fee, and stood to receive over $1.9 million had the scheme been completed. He received over $149,000 for his role in the scheme.

[3] The appellant raises numerous grounds of appeal, none of which have merit.

[4] The appellant's objection to the fact that the CRA obtained Criminal Code search warrants, rather than search warrants under the Income Tax Act, was rejected by Nordheimer J. (as he then was) in his decision dismissing the appellant's application for an order quashing the search warrants. See R. v. Watts at para. 6, citing R. v. Multiform Manufacturing Co., [1990] 2 S.C.R. 624. There is nothing to be added to this analysis.

[5] As for the appellant's claim that his Charter rights were violated by the CRA's request that he file tax returns, the trial judge noted that the Crown agreed not to use or rely on the 2009 or 2010 returns, and these were excised from the ITO. The trial judge properly concluded that the search warrants were validly issued.

[6] We see no errors in the judge's charge to the jury, and there is no merit in any of the other grounds in the appellant's factum. The appeal from conviction must be dismissed.

[7] We see no error in regard to sentence. It was open to the trial judge to order a fine in lieu of forfeiture and he made no error in establishing payment terms.

[8] The appeals for conviction and sentence are dismissed.