Sam Goldstein

The defendant, Carolyn Burden, was charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000 arising from her employment at Max the Mutt Animation Inc., a Toronto-based animation school.

During her employment from mid-2010 to mid-2011, approximately $159,000 was electronically transferred from the company's account to the defendant's personal account.

The Crown alleged the defendant fraudulently obtained more than $100,000 in excess of her authorized compensation.

The defendant claimed all transfers were authorized by her employer, Maxine Schacker, either as salary or as payment for invoiced work performed at various hourly rates.

The court found the defendant guilty of both charges, rejecting her testimony and accepting the Crown's evidence that she had independent capacity to execute electronic transfers and that no invoices supporting her claimed additional work were ever produced.

The Crown sought leave to appeal a sentence of 18 months for unlawful possession of a loaded restricted firearm and possession of a firearm knowing that its possession was unauthorized.

The court held that although the sentence was clearly very low, the sentencing judge identified mitigating factors including repudiation of gang membership, an early guilty plea, full-time employment, and significant lifestyle change.

The court accepted that deference was owed to the sentencing judge’s assessment of the offender and his prospects.

Leave to appeal was granted, but the sentence appeal was dismissed because the sentence was not manifestly unfit.

The young person appealed a custodial sentence of 300 days followed by 14 months' probation for the sexual assault of a friend.

The appellant argued the sentencing judge erred by treating his trial testimony as an aggravating factor and that the sentence was excessive.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the sentence fit and noting the sentencing judge properly considered the appellant's lack of empathy and remorse, as evidenced by text messages sent after the assault, rather than his trial testimony.

The appellant appealed a conviction for fraud over $5,000 arising from a fundraising scheme that solicited donations for seriously ill children while paying canvassers commissions and remitting only a small fraction of funds to charitable causes.

The Court of Appeal rejected the factual challenge to the finding that canvassers were instructed to mislead donors about being paid.

Applying Supreme Court of Canada authority, the court held that non-disclosure of the paid status of canvassers could constitute 'other fraudulent means' where the omission concealed a fundamental aspect of the fundraiser-contributor relationship and would mislead a reasonable donor.

The court also upheld the 15-month custodial sentence, fine, restitution order, and victim surcharge, emphasizing that custodial sentences are the norm in large-scale fraud cases.

The appellants challenged an order dismissing a certiorari application arising from a preliminary inquiry committal in a homicide prosecution.

The Court of Appeal held that the preliminary inquiry judge exceeded her limited jurisdiction by choosing between competing inferences reasonably available on the evidence and by preferring the inference favourable to the appellants.

The court also rejected the argument that the evidence was incapable of placing one appellant within the scheme to do violence, holding that any relative weakness in the evidence was irrelevant at the committal stage.

The appeals were dismissed.

The appellant was arrested for armed robbery.

Incident to his arrest, police conducted a pat-down search and seized his unlocked cellphone, briefly examining its contents and finding incriminating photos and a text message.

At the police station, the appellant was left alone for five hours before being interviewed, during which time he confessed.

The trial judge admitted the cellphone evidence, finding the search was a lawful search incident to arrest, and admitted the confession under s. 24(2) of the Charter despite an inadvertent breach of the appellant's right to counsel.

The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions, declining to carve out a cellphone exception to the common law doctrine of search incident to arrest.

The Crown sought judicial review by certiorari of a preliminary inquiry decision discharging multiple accused charged with murder, manslaughter, and attempted murder arising from a fatal shooting outside a nightclub.

The preliminary inquiry judge concluded there was insufficient evidence connecting the accused to the handgun used in the shooting and discharged all accused.

The reviewing court held that the preliminary inquiry judge exceeded jurisdiction by choosing between competing inferences and weighing the evidence beyond the permissible “limited weighing” required for circumstantial cases under R. v. Arcuri.

The evidence supported reasonable inferences of motive, means, opportunity, and a joint enterprise to ambush the victims, and the judge improperly preferred an inference favourable to the accused.

The discharges were therefore quashed and the accused were ordered committed to stand trial.

The appellant appealed his conviction for robbery with a firearm, arguing the verdict was unreasonable due to insufficient evidence linking him to the attempted carjacking and establishing the weapon was a real firearm.

The Court of Appeal upheld the finding that the appellant was a party to the robbery, but found insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the firearm was real.

The appeal was allowed in part, substituting a conviction for robbery and reducing the sentence to 12 months' imprisonment.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing the trial judge misapprehended evidence affecting credibility findings regarding a key witness.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge's conclusions that the witness had no motive to lie and that independent evidence confirmed his testimony were reasonably open to her.

The court also upheld the finding that the appellant lied about not knowing the witness.