Wendy Levant

The offender pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud over $5,000 for evading personal and corporate income taxes and failing to remit GST/HST, totaling over $1.6 million.

The court accepted a joint submission for a penitentiary sentence of two and one-half years.

The court also found that the offender had misappropriated and hidden significant cash, establishing her ability to pay a fine.

A fine of $833,238 was imposed, with five and one-half years to pay.

The appellant appealed his convictions for multiple drug trafficking offences and sought leave to appeal his sentence.

The charges stemmed from two indictments: the first arising from a warrantless police entry into a hotel room, and the second from subsequent search warrants based on information obtained from cell phones seized during the hotel room entry.

The trial judge found the hotel room entry violated s. 8 of the Charter but admitted all evidence under s. 24(2), finding the breach was mitigated by police good faith and the appellant's reduced expectation of privacy.

The appellant was convicted of all charges and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the conviction appeal and the sentencing appeal.

The appellant appealed his sentence imposed by the Ontario Court of Justice.

The trial judge had misunderstood the position of defence counsel regarding the appropriate sentence, resulting in a sentence longer than that requested by either Crown or defence.

The Court of Appeal received fresh evidence on consent to clarify defence counsel's position and adjusted the sentence to an effective three years, with credit for 533 days of presentence custody.

The sentence was varied to consist of 562 days for possession of a loaded prohibited firearm, with concurrent sentences on related drug and firearm offences.

The appellant was entitled to a reformatory sentence (less than two years) and arrangements were made to transfer him from the penitentiary in British Columbia to the reformatory system in Ontario.

The accused was convicted at trial of tax evasion for failing to file income tax returns for four consecutive tax years (2007-2010) while receiving over $2 million in salary, bonuses, and dividends from his company.

The Crown sought a custodial sentence of up to two years plus a fine of 100% of taxes evaded.

The defence sought a conditional sentence with a fine of 50-100% of taxes evaded.

The court imposed a 20-month custodial sentence and a fine of 100% of the taxes evaded ($552,976), finding that a conditional sentence would not provide sufficient deterrence given the sophistication of the offender, the scale of the evasion, and the ease with which such offences can be committed.

The accused was charged with wilfully evading or attempting to evade payment of $552,976 in Federal taxes by failing to file income tax returns for the taxation years 2007-2010 contrary to s.239(1)(d) of the Income Tax Act.

The accused admitted the failure to file but claimed he always intended to pay taxes in the future.

The Crown argued the accused deliberately chose not to file to avoid immediate tax payment.

The court found the accused guilty, determining that the Crown proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused had the requisite intent to evade taxes.

The court found the accused was not a credible witness and that his claim of future intent to pay did not provide a defence to tax evasion.

The accused was charged with importing cocaine after CBSA officers found cocaine in fruit juice cans in her luggage during a secondary inspection at the airport.

The accused sought to exclude statements she made to a CBSA officer, arguing they were involuntary and obtained in violation of her s. 7 and s. 10(b) Charter rights.

The court held that the statements were voluntary, as the accused was statutorily compelled to answer routine questions at the border.

The court further held that the accused was not detained until the officer formed a sufficiently strong particularized suspicion after x-raying the cans, at which point no further statements were made.

The Charter motion was dismissed and the statements were ruled admissible.