Former bureaucrat admitted he ‘diverted’ funds, sons say
Family of man fired after alleged $11M theft were shocked by actions, court documents state
The wife and sons of the Ontario bureaucrat fired after the alleged theft of $11 million in COVID-19 funds say he “admitted to us that he had diverted some money” after they confronted him about “unusual” banking activity.
According to documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court, the province alleges “some or all of” Sanjay Madan, his spouse, Shalini Madan, their adult sons, Chinmaya and Ujjawal Madan, and associate Vidhan Singh perpetrated “a massive fraud” to funnel $11 million in government payments to hundreds of TD and Bank of Montreal accounts.
The government’s allegations have not been proven in court and no criminal charges have been laid. Seven Ontario Provincial Police detectives are working on the case.
But, in sworn affidavits filed Monday, Shalini, Chinmaya and Ujjawal Madan
insisted they knew nothing of the accusations against the family patriarch, who was sacked in November from his $176,608-a-year Ministry of Education job.
Sanjay Madan was the information technology leader on the Support for Families program’s computer application, which gave $200 and $250 cheques to parents to help with pandemic-related education expenses last spring.
“Sanjay has always been very controlling and secretive about money but, to the best of my knowledge until that time, never dishonest,” Shalini Madan testified. “Sanjay and I both worked hard to establish ourselves and had always lived modestly and enjoyed our careers. I am at a complete loss to understand why Sanjay would risk everything in the manner he did. We needed nothing.”
The families’ assets — including a 30-unit Waterloo student housing complex recently listed for sale for $8 million, a seven-bedroom house in North York, six Toronto condominiums, and more than $1 million in proceeds from the sale of a four-bedroom house — are now frozen by a government court injunction.
That includes condos owned by the sons they say their father told them had been financed with his line of credit.
“It all makes no sense to me. I have spent many sleepless nights and tearful days trying to understand, but cannot. The Sanjay the (government’s legal action) describes is like a completely different person than the man who is my husband and the father of our children.”
Shalini Madan, who was terminated from her $132,513-ayear position as a Ministry of Government and Consumer Services computer manager last fall, said she and Sanjay met in New Delhi, India, for an arranged marriage.
“Throughout our marriage, our family’s finances, including my bank accounts, mostly joint, were managed exclusively and entirely by my husband … He alone possessed the password, bank card and telephone used for two-factor authentication for my accounts. Many traditional Indian families operate in this way, including mine,” she said.
As for the slew of accounts allegedly opened in her name and those of her sons, Shalini said she was “unaware” of them.
“I did not open any of those bank accounts … I did not deposit or cause to be deposited any money into any of those bank accounts; I did not withdraw any money from any of those bank accounts; and, as a result, I do not consider myself to be the owner of any of those bank accounts.”
That sentiment was echoed in the affidavits filed by her sons and sworn before Sanjay Madan’s lawyer, Christopher Du Vernet, on Monday.
Du Vernet said his client does not dispute the testimony of his wife and sons.
“Mr. Madan’s wife and children are victims, not villains. The Sanjay Madan who is alleged to have behaved so inappropriately is not the man they have known,” the lawyer said. “They are still struggling to understand what prompted him to act as he did, and especially to have used his own family when doing so. None of them needed the money he is alleged to have taken, none of them were involved in its misappropriation and none of them have benefited from the money.”
“Their identities were used without their knowledge. They are obliged to conclude in the circumstances that Mr. Madan has long suffered from a mental disorder that has profoundly distorted his judgment, and that went undiagnosed and untreated,” he said. “While they do not condone what he has done, they forgive him and they implore others to do the same.”
Chinmaya said the family is “a relatively traditional Indian family, and as such my father has always managed the family’s finances in every respect,” so it was not out of the ordinary for him to control his sons’ bank accounts.
However, he said he and his brother, Ujjawal, who worked for the government in lowerlevel information technology jobs, confronted their father when they noticed “unusual” activity on his accounts.
“I was perplexed and confused. He was initially evasive … eventually, I asked him if it was anything improper, and at that point he admitted to us that he had diverted some money into the account,” said Chinmaya, adding he was “shocked” by the revelations. “Both Ujjawal and I were livid. My father became very apologetic. At our insistence and our anger towards the fact that he was putting us in danger, he told us that he would return the funds to their rightful owner, but that it would take some time to do so.
“My father was shaken and remorseful, it seemed like before our discussion he wasn’t even aware of the consequences of his actions. I felt betrayed by my father. I realized that Ujjawal and I were victims of identity theft, committed by our own father.”
Ujjawal described an emotional encounter between the brothers and their father.
“Upon our insistent questioning, he eventually confessed that he was diverting funds that did not belong to us into accounts with our names on them,” he testified in the sworn affidavit.
“He agreed that the deposits should not have been made and that at my brother’s and my behest, he was now going to work with the banks to return them.”
As the Star revealed Friday, the $11 million has been returned to the provincial treasury.
“I was furious and emotionally distraught about my father’s actions. I had never imagined in a million years that my father was capable of such behaviour,” said Ujjawal.
Court documents say Sanjay Madan holds Canadian and Indian passports even though India does not permit dual citizenship. Madan owns two villas in Hyderabad, India. He also has permanent residency status in the tax haven of Panama, which has no extradition treaty with Canada.