City councillor was cleared of fraud charge
Coun. Stephen Wright, who campaigned on his background in advocacy for property taxpayers, was once charged and investigated by City of Kawartha Lakes OPP for fraud over $5,000, but was found not guilty in an Ottawa court in 2012.
The new councillor came second in Northcrest Ward in the Oct. 22 municipal election; he and incumbent Coun. Andrew Beamer were elected, while Dave Haacke lost his seat.
The Examiner learned of his criminal charge and acquittal after the election.
Wright told The Examiner that the allegations brought against him by his former employer, the lobby group Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), were “falsehoods” over which he was acquitted in court.
He did not want to be interviewed for this story on Tuesday, but he sent a written statement to The Examiner.
“Relitigating the propriety of a politically motivated allegation, which ultimately led the court to reaffirm my innocence, is not my focus,” Wright wrote.
“I am focused on discharging the sacred duty entrusted to me by the residents of Ward 5, and ensuring they are ably and earnestly represented for the next four years. Trash journalism is precisely that, trash. I am disappointed by the apparent attempt to smear my tenure in its first week.”
Wright was accused of soliciting donations for three companies he’d created himself while employed as a canvasser for CTF, states the judgment from Ontario Superior Court Justice Jennifer Blishen.
His companies had names that sounded similar to Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Blishen writes in her judgment that his companies also focused on property tax reform.
He took donations from people he’d canvassed before as an agent for CTF, Blishen writes in her judgment, without making certain they understood he was working for himself — and after
he collected, she wrote, he put the money in a business account that he dipped into for personal use.
Blishen further wrote that Wright’s “unacceptable, sloppy bookkeeping and accounting practices … raise suspicions as to his motivation.”
She also found that many donors were misled: several testified in court they thought they were donating to a new offshoot of CFT, and she found Wright had failed to properly explain that was not the case.
But she didn’t find that Wright had intentionally cheated, misled or misrepresented himself while canvassing.
There was evidence Wright truly meant to start a lobby group, Blishen wrote in her judgment: he’d hired employees such as a bookkeeper and a field agent to work for him, for example.
“I find that Mr. Wright genuinely intended to start a legitimate lobbying/advocacy organization to deal with property tax reform and to solicit funds for those efforts,” the judge wrote.
Don’t tell that to CTF: six years later, they still maintain a low opinion of Wright.
“One of the greatest mistakes we ever made as an organization was trusting Stephen Wright to represent us and collect money from our donors,” wrote Scott Hennig, a spokesman for CTF, in a recent email to The Examiner.
CTF fired Wright when they found out about his companies and they also alerted police, Hennig wrote, and they haven’t had any relationship with him since.
“We greatly regret having ever worked with him,” he wrote.
Blishen’s judgment recaps all the evidence that court heard.
She paints a picture in that judgment of Wright as a star canvasser for CTF who sought a raise — and when he didn’t get it, struck out on his own without alerting his superiors.
Wright was hired by CTF in 2004, Blishen wrote. He started working in Eastern Ontario, where CTF had almost no donors.
“He did extremely well,” the judgment states. “Mr. Wright was one of the best field agents in the country.”
By 2007 he was earning $78,670 annually in commissions, writes Justice Blishen — but when he asked for a raise, he was turned down.
Through 2006 and 2007 he persisted in “pushing very hard” for a raise, the judgment says, but he didn’t get it.
In the spring of 2008, his bosses noted that donations collected by Wright had dropped by half, Blishen writes; they assumed he was working elsewhere on the side (which was allowed, under his contract).
Unbeknownst to them, Wright was looking to create his own companies.
In June 2008, writes Blishen, Wright went to a government office in Peterborough and registered a new lobby organization.
He called it the Ontario Taxpayers Association, the judgment states. But within days he was advised he would have to pick another name because the word ‘association’ is not allowed in the name of a non-profit.
He dropped the word “association,” writes the judge, and reregistered it as Ontario Taxpayers.
Later still, he received notice that the business name still didn’t comply with requirements and would be cancelled, the judge writes. He registered a third name, Advocates for Ontario Taxpayers.
Next he hired a bookkeeper, the judge writes, a field agent and an employee to do administrative work once a week.
All this was taking place without his bosses’ knowledge, Blishen wrote.
But in August 2008, writes the judge, someone tipped off Wright’s bosses that he was soliciting CTF donors for his own, similarly named companies while using a logo similar to that of CTF.
The bosses were upset, as there was a non-competition clause in his contract stating agents can’t compete directly with CTF, the judgment states.
Wright was fired, the judge wrote, and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation CEO at the time, Kenneth Azzopardi, said he would alert police.
Still, Wright didn’t give up canvassing for his own companies until October 2008, writes the judge, when Kawartha Lakes OPP started an investigation.
Police received a spreadsheet from CFT showing 53 donors who had donated a total of $14,395 to Wright between June and October, 2008, Justice Blishen wrote.
CTF had data because they visited donors in Wright’s area after they fired him, the judge wrote.
They also sent out a memo to donors in Wright’s territory warning them not to give money to him because his companies weren’t even registered, Blishen wrote (which wasn’t true, the judge adds — the companies were indeed registered).
An OPP detective then interviewed 13 donors in the Ottawa area and in the Peterborough area who’d given Wright a total of $5,117 over four months in the summer of 2008, the judge wrote, when Wright was still employed with CTF.
Police then charged Wright with fraud over $5,000, writes Blishen.
Yet in court, 17 donors testified as witnesses — and when Blishen did the math, she found they’d donated $4,917 in total.
From that total the judge deducted money because she wasn’t convinced one witness had in fact donated to Wright — so the charge of fraud over $5,000 didn’t stick.
Bank records obtained by police showed that cheques donated to Wright’s organizations were all deposited to a Scotiabank business bank account, the judge wrote.
But then Wright wrote cheques to himself from that account, wrote the judge, transferred money from there into his personal savings or made Interac purchases using the business account.
Court heard he’d made Interac purchases in locations such as the LCBO, movie theatres, grocery stores and hotels, according to reporting at the time in the Ottawa Citizen.
Meanwhile, Blishen wrote, the 17 donors who testified in court own businesses either near Ottawa or near Peterborough (a gas station owner from Coboconk testified, for instance, as well as a contractor from Pontypool).
Each one was a longtime donor to CTF, the judge wrote, and knew Wright as a CTF canvasser.
Each one wrote a cheque to Wright’s new companies — but they all testified they were under the impression those new companies were somehow affiliated with CTF, wrote the judge.
At least three testified it was very busy at work when Wright came to canvass, the judge wrote, and they wrote cheques without paying much attention to his pitch (he testified that he followed a script explaining that he was starting his own companies, Blishen wrote).
“All 17 small business owners liked and trusted Mr. Wright,” Blishen wrote.
Because of that “relationship of trust,” the judge wrote, Wright had a duty to “fully, unequivocally and clearly” explain that his new companies were in no way affiliated with CTF.
She found he failed to do that. But she wasn’t convinced it was intentional fraud, she wrote — it could have been “merely negligent”, given that he’d shown signs of a sincere intention to start a lobby group (he’d hired employees and registered and re-registered his business name, she states for instance).
In the municipal election on Oct. 22, Wright beat incumbent councillor Dave Haacke by 851 votes (Wright had 3,399, and Haacke had 2,548).
Haacke didn’t want to comment for this story.
Neither did newly elected Mayor Diane Therrien, who said she knew nothing about the case.
Nobody loses eligibility to serve on a municipal council because of a past charge or conviction.
Praveen Senthinathan, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, outlined the rules in an email to The Examiner.
Several factors disqualify a person from serving on a municipal council, Senthinathan wrote, but a past police charge isn’t one of them (you’d have to be an inmate in jail to be disqualified).
Wright was sworn in Monday along with Therrien and the rest of council. The first meeting of the new city council is planned for Dec. 3, and councillors’ committee appointments are expected to be discussed then.