The two men convicted in the Atlas Copco of $24 million fraud could face up to 14 years in prison, says the assistant Crown attorney who led the prosecution in the case.
"There is no minimum" sentence, Philip Zylberberg told reporters Wednesday on the steps of the Sudbury Courthouse. "The judge can do whatever the judge thinks is right ... Nothing's mandatory."
Paul Caron and Dirk Plate, both of Quebec, were each found guilty of one count of fraud over $5,000.*
The allegations are related to Atlas Copco's Sudbury operations, where as much as $24 million went missing in the complicated case.
According to published reports, three Atlas Copco employees were accused of being in on the fraud scheme and putting millions worth of kickbacks into their own bank accounts.
The third man, Leo Caron, pled guilty in 2014 and was sentenced to five years. He testified for the Crown during the trial, which began in April, almost four years after the charges were laid.
Caron represented himself at the trial, while Plate was represented by lawyer Ralph Steinberg.
The pair will return to court in Oct. 25 for a sentencing hearing. Because of the complexity of the cause, Superior Court Justice John Poupore directed Zylberberg to have his sentencing recommendations ready 10 days before that date to give the defence time to review the details.
Zylberberg declined to say what sort of sentence he'll ask for.
"I have some ideas of what I'm thinking I'll be asking the court to do, but I don't think it would be right to share those with you at this time."
But he did say fines or some sort of compensation could be part of what he'll seek.
"That's an option for these cases -- a restitution order is an option, and a forfeiture order is an option for an offence related to property to the extent that it could be found or traced. So those are options."
Poupore and Zylberberg had high praise for the jury in the case. The judge said they were engaged and interested despite the pages and pages of documents and detailed testimony it involved.
“You have all acquitted yourself admirably,” Poupore said. “You are to be congratulated for that.”
Zylberberg was also impressed.
"The charges were laid originally in October of 2012, and we're only bringing the matter to a conclusion now because of the size of the file, the amount of material we had to go through -- really, the sheer volume of material," he said. "I was amazed at how they were able to maintain focus and attention on what was probably 35,000 pages of documentary material, as well as the 11 witnesses they heard from.
"Every one of those jurors seemed able to pay attention, even when the evidence got technical or when columns of numbers had to be looked at."
*An earlier version of this story stated incorrectly the men faced charges of theft and conspiracy as well. Sudbury.com apologizes for the error.
