Man sentenced in vacation property fraud case
Fraudster Matthew Jonsson made a living ripping people off through the popular world of online cottage rentals.
The Windsor man would collect photos of properties in Muskoka and other popular vacation sites, advertise them as available rentals on kijiji.ca or other websites, then wait for his victims to bite.
Using ever-changing pseudonyms, Jonsson operated his scheme for nearly two years, switching to bogus rentals in Whistler, B.C., and Canmore, Alta., to keep money flowing during the winter months.
Jonsson, 26, this week pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud over $5,000. The Ontario court judge in London who heard his case spared Jonsson jail, instead placing the father of three on probation for three years. Justice John Skowronski also ordered Jonsson to make restitution of more than $51,000 to the 58 people and families he defrauded.
If Jonsson defaults on the payments, he would be in breach of a court order and could wind up behind bars, his defence lawyer Evie Lipton said Thursday.
Court heard Jonsson would communicate with his victims through email, text messages and, occasionally, by phone. They would come to an agreement to rent a property for a weekend or longer and the victim would pay for the booking through an email money transfer.
Often, the victims would only discover the fraud weeks or months later after arriving at the property with carloads of friends or family. The cottage would already be occupied or, in some cases, it didn’t exist at all.
The RCMP caught up with Jonsson after victims began reporting the fraud to their local police.
The Crown had been seeking a jail sentence for Jonsson, Lipton said, but conceded that was not likely because of the length of time it took for the case to be heard.
“There were possible delay issues with this case,” she said, explaining she was prepared to argue the charges should be withdrawn because Jonsson’s right to a trial within a reasonable amount of time had been compromised.
“He has had this burden hanging over his head for a long time,” Lipton said.
Lipton said Jonsson was under financial pressure at the time of his crimes, supporting a young family that included a baby with developmental disabilities. She said he and his common-law wife were travelling to London regularly to take their child, now two years old, to see a specialist.
“The judge took that into consideration,” Lipton said.
Jonsson told the court he was sorry for what he did. “He has every intention to make good on the restitution order,” Lipton said.
In exchange for the guilty plea, charges were dropped against Jonsson’s common-law wife, Tamiwa Kanyenda, 22. Together, the couple has three children, aged 4, 2 and six months.
He has had this burden hanging over his head for a long time.
Jonsson had been additionally charged with money laundering and trafficking in property obtained by crime. Those charges were also withdrawn.
Jonsson, who has a long history of petty crime, complained of being a victim of police brutality during an arrest in October 2014. Two Windsor police officers — Const. Daniel Merlo and Const. Aaron Naklie — were charged with assault and other crimes after an investigation by the Special Investigations Unit, the province’s police watchdog agency. When the case came to trial in May 2016, Jonsson failed to appear in court to testify and the charges were withdrawn.
Jonsson, at the time, was the subject of an arrest warrant out of London for the cottage-rental fraud scheme. If he’d appeared in court in Windsor to testify, he would have been arrested.