Former vice-principal pleads guilty

‘Error in judgment’ in forged documents case leads to loss of job, ‘stellar resumé’

A former vice-principal with the Hamilton public school board pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of causing the U.S. Consulate to use forged documents.

Patrick Elliott, 47, helped alter documents so that a colleague could obtain U.S. citizenship for his children.

Ontario Court Justice Joe Fiorucci accepted a joint submission from the Crown and defence counsel that Elliott receive a six-month conditional sentence.

“There was no benefit whatsoever” to Elliott from his involvement in the forgery, defence lawyer Mitchell Rosenblatt said.

“This was totally out of character for him,” he added.

An email exchange from July 14, 2015, read aloud in court, showed Elliott agreed to help Patrick Rocco, a former board superintendent, alter electronic documents for submission to the consulate.

“I will call you but need to change address on a PDF,” Rocco wrote.

“Yes, we will figure something out,” Elliott responded five minutes later.

Four days later, Elliott wrote Rocco: “So what do we need done? Do you need a paper copy or digital? Lay it out for me so I know exactly what you need.”

Just over two years later, Hamilton police arrested Rocco and Elliott.

Rocco, 57, pleaded guilty last month to using forged documents to obtain U.S. citizenship, and was sentenced to a one-year conditional sentence. He was born in the United States and moved to Canada when he was a boy, later becoming a Canadian citizen.

The investigation began in August 2015, soon after Rocco told the board he had accepted a new job with the Toronto District School Board. Rocco’s email account was examined by a Hamilton school board official, and his exchanges with Elliott were discovered.

Questions remain as to why Rocco went to such lengths to obtain U.S. citizenship for his children.

Rosenblatt suggested in court that Elliott got involved because Rocco had been “somewhat of a friend” and at one time his supervisor.

“He (Rocco) used my client to do things he would otherwise not do . ... There was no money or benefit promised.”

Married with two teenaged children, Elliott was fired from the board last January. He lives in the Niagara area and has been working as a driver for UPS, earning $16 an hour, and part time at a vineyard while taking courses at Brock University.

He will be permitted to work and attend classes, but otherwise he will be under house arrest for the first three months of his sentence, and will carry a criminal record on what was once, the judge said, a “stellar resumé.”

Elliott had shown remorse and cooperated with police, Fiorucci said, calling it a “shame that his error in judgment in this brief period of time in his life” had caused him to lose his income, professional status and the security his family once had.