Former TTC officers land jail time
Trio convicted for issuing tickets for offences that hadn’t occurred to skip work
After a five-year legal saga, three former TTC officers have been sentenced to jail time for writing fake tickets to homeless people as part of a scheme to skip out on work.
At a College Park courtroom on Wednesday morning, Justice S. Ford Clements sentenced Michael Schmidt to 90 days in jail, plus a nine-month conditional sentence of house arrest.
Schmidt’s co-accused Tony Catic and Jan Posthumus received sentences of 45 days in jail plus six months house arrest, and 14 days jail plus three months house arrest, respectively.
All three were convicted last June of fabrication of evidence and attempting to obstruct justice.
In his decision, Clements described the trio’s offences as “very serious” because “they undermine the public confidence in the administration of justice.”
While the officers didn’t have the same arrest powers as police, Clements said, they were peace officers entrusted with enforcing TTC bylaws and the Provincial Offences Act.
“They were duty-bound to exercise that authority in a lawful manner. They did not,” the judge said.
The judge ordered the men to attend jail on weekends, and to serve their house arrests concurrently. He also sentenced them to perform community service in the form of helping the homeless.
The sentences were lighter than those sought by Crown Attorney Derek Ishak, who last month asked the judge to impose a one-year sentence for Schmidt, six to nine months for Catic, and three months for Posthumus. As a TTC sergeant, Schmidt was the highest-ranking of the three and, according to the Crown, the ringleader of the plot. He was found to have been involved in writing 28 phoney tickets, more than twice as many as Catic and six times as many as Posthumus.
“We definitely felt that the sentence that was being sought by the Crown reflected the seriousness of the offences themselves,” Ishak told reporters.
He pointed out the targets of the bogus fines were “some of Toronto’s most socially and economically disenfranchised.”
But he said the judge had handed down “significant” sentences to the men which could serve as a deterrent to similar abuses of power.
“We do obviously hope that the sentence will ensure that others in the same positions of authority will think twice and in fact not commit such offences in future. But one can only hope,” Ishak said.
The trio’s lawyers had argued for leniency on the grounds that none of the men had previous convictions, and prior to their arrests had exemplary records at the TTC that included commendations for saving customers’ lives and apprehending criminals.
Gary Clewley, who represented Schmidt and Catic at the sentencing, called the judge’s decision “very thoughtful.” He acknowledged the offences his clients had committed were serious, and argued they didn’t get off lightly.
“The guys just left the building in handcuffs on the way to a jail. I think that sends a pretty big message to people inclined to do what they did,” he said.
Schmidt, Catic, and Posthumus were fired and arrested in 2013 following a joint investigation by the TTC and Toronto police.
The court heard evidence that the officers made it appear they were at work by issuing tickets for bylaw infractions that hadn’t occurred.
Many of the tickets were made out to homeless people who were known to frequent the transit system. Because they were unaware the tickets had been served in their name, they didn’t pay the fines or show up to court to contest them.