Sona sentenced to nine months for robocall scheme
GUELPH, Ont. — More than three years after voters in Guelph received mysterious telephone calls directing them to the wrong polling location, an Ontario court has sentenced the only person charged for the misleading robocalls to nine months in prison.
Michael Sona, 26, spent his first night behind bars Wednesday after Judge Gary Hearn handed down the jail term for Sona’s role in a scheme to send out the automated calls on federal election day in 2011.
The most visible face of a story that garnered headlines through 2012 and 2013, Sona was sentenced to an additional 12 months of probation after his jail term ends. Barring an appeal, he will serve at least three months in a provincial jail before he can apply for parole.
The sentencing decision left his family in tears after the former Parliament Hill staffer was led out of court to begin serving the sentence.
Moments earlier, Hearn had called Sona’s crime “an affront to the electoral process” and said imprisonment is required to effectively denounce such a serious offence.
“Mr. Sona’s actions themselves speak to a lack of appreciation and respect for the rights of all voters,” Hearn said. “They represent a complete disregard for our political system and its values.”
The sentence, Hearn said, “must send a message to others that are so inclined that such trickery in the political arena is conduct that will be dealt with by the court in a significant way.”
Sona did not address the court or make any comment on his way to jail, but in a statement apparently written beforehand and released by a friend he continued to proclaim his innocence. Sona will begin serving his term immediately, but could apply for bail if he chooses to appeal the verdict or the sentence.
The Crown had asked for 18 to 20 months of jail time, while the defence argued that if jail was required a 14to 30-day term would suffice. Sona faced a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Sona, 26, was the director of communications for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke during the 2011 election.
He was found guilty in August for his role in a scheme that sent automated calls to more than 7,000 voters in the riding on the morning of the election. The calls wrongly claimed to come from Elections Canada and directed voters identified as non-Conservatives to the wrong polling locations.
The calls used data from the Conservative Party’s voter-contact database and were arranged using a disposable phone registered to the pseudonym Pierre Poutine.