Supreme Court of British Columbia Justice Robert Johnston has stayed fraud and theft charges against Charles Kamal Dass, a former financial advisor with Dundee Securities Corp., citing the delay in bringing the case to court.
The court ruled in favour of Dass, who sought a stay of the case against him on the basis that an unreasonable delay in hearing the allegations against him represents a violation of his Charter rights, on Aug. 8 as Justice Johnston granted Dass’s application. The judge’s reasons for the ruling have now been released.
According to the decision, Dass was charged with 15 counts of theft and fraud stemming from three sets of complaints, between January 2000 and December 2007. He was charged in 2013, six years after the initial complaint to police, and his trial was set to conclude Sept. 2, 2016 — almost 39 months after the charge was laid.
The court found that about six months of the delay was due to the defence, and that some portion of the delay (18 to 24 months) “might be defensible on the basis of inherent time requirements or limits on institutional resources.”
However, the court found that the overall 39-month delay is not reasonable, and it granted a stay.
In 2009, an Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) hearing panel ordered that Dass be banned permanently and ordered to pay a $220,000 fine and more than $80,000 in costs after it found that he committed several violations. These included engaging in improper personal financial dealings with several clients, misappropriated funds, and attempting to obstruct IIROC’s investigation. According to IIROC’s unpaid fines report, none of those penalties have been paid.
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