Man jailed for bankruptcy fraud for fleeing U.S. on a rented snowmobile

BOSTON — An “almost illiterate” Nova Scotia man who made it rich in Massachusetts real estate and then fled across the border back to Canada on a rented snowmobile to avoid criminal prosecution has been jailed for 18 months.

Cyril Gordon Lunn, 69, was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Boston on charges that he hid up to US$4 million in cash after declaring bankruptcy.

Lunn owned Cy Realty Corp., a construction and development business in Pepperell, Mass. He declared bankruptcy in 2001, but failed to disclose that he had stashed the money in Canadian banks.

In March 2005, Lunn rented a snowmobile in Presque Isle, Maine, and took a remote trail into New Brunswick. He remained a fugitive until last year.

A 2016 Nova Scotia Appeal Court ruling on his extradition to the U.S. described Lunn’s remarkable life story: “At 15, he left school and his Nova Scotia home to seek a better life in Toronto. But he stayed there for just a year, convinced that, in the early 1960’s, Boston was the place to be. From a financial perspective at least, he was right. Despite his lack of education, hard work and obvious intelligence made him quite rich.”

Lunn’s lawyer said his client started in construction, but by 1985 became wealthy through property development despite being “almost illiterate.”

Lunn declared bankruptcy in 2001, though, and blamed his “cunning and cut throat common-law partner,” who was also his employee.

“He needed her entirely. She could read and write and he relied on her for everything related to his businesses,” his lawyer later told the then-federal justice minister, Peter MacKay in a bid to avoid deportation back to the U.S.

“He had no idea she was embezzling from him and setting him up for future financial failure. Cyril prided himself on being able to do the work of several men. He was not interested so much in paperwork or corporate management. That, he left to his employee.”

MacKay ultimately decided to surrender Lunn to the U.S. The appeal court ruled that decision was reasonable, and Lunn pleaded guilty in January to concealing assets from his bankruptcy creditors and making a false statement under penalty of perjury.

U.S. prosecutors said Lunn had started transferring money to Canada in about 1988, and continued till at least September 2001 — a month after Cy Realty Corp. filed for bankruptcy. He filed for personal bankruptcy that October.

He did not disclose he had “approximately $3-4 million in United States and Canadian currency,” prosecutors said.