An Ontario court has granted an appeal by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), ordering that the jail sentences given to a repeat offender be served consecutively, not concurrently — thereby boosting a 27-month sentence to 45 months.
Following an appeal from the OSC, the Superior Court of Justice ordered that an 18-month jail sentence levied on Abel Da Silva in March 2012 for trading without registration and breaching three OSC orders be served consecutively to the 27-month sentence he was already serving for running a boiler room, which was handed down in November 2011.
According to the decision, the OSC argued that the trial judge erred by ordering that the sentences be served concurrently, and that a concurrent sentence doesn’t act as a deterrent to securities fraud. It notes that the sentencing judge had accepted the defense argument that consecutive jail terms would be excessive.
However, the court is now siding with the commission, ruling that the sentences should be consecutive as the cases involved different securities, the offences occurred in different time periods, the charges were different, as were the victims, the amounts raised, and Da Silva’s role in the schemes.
Indeed, the court notes, “The fact that the respondent breached three separate prohibition orders starting in 2006 is reason enough to find the concurrent sentence unfit.” And, it continues, “A sentence of 45 months in total is not disproportionate to the gravity of the offences and his degree of responsibility for them.”