Robocalls principal could get jail time
GUELPH, Ont. — In the two months since he was convicted for his role in the scheme to disenfranchise voters with automated calls in the 2011 election, Michael Sona has remained silent, at least in public.
On Friday, in a Guelph courtroom, the former Conservative campaign worker was directly asked by Judge Gary Hearn if he had anything to say before his sentencing.
Sona rose slightly from his seat in the front row of the courtroom gallery, shook his head, and sat down.
Never, Crown prosecutor Croft Michaels on told the court, has Sona expressed remorse or regret over the scheme that sent automated phone messages to more than 6,000 people, directing them to the wrong polling stations.
Nor, Michaelson said, is there any indication that Sona takes any personal responsibility for the messy Guelph robocalls affair, despite Hearn’s judgment in August that found Sona actively participated in so-called “Pierre Poutine” scheme, even if he was not alone.
Before he was charged last year, Sona, 26, went on a media campaign to clear his name, sitting down for network TV interviews to protest his innocence and claim he had been scapegoated by the Conservative party.
Now, with Hearn preparing to deliver a sentence that could include jail time, Sona has gone mute.
His lawyer, Norm Boxall, suggested something in the 14- to 30-day range, or a conditional sentence of house arrest or curfew that would allow Sona to continue his ongoing apprenticeship as a machinist.
But Michaelson told the court that a jail term of 18 to 20 months — not days — would send a clear message that “the electoral system is sacrosanct.”