Three former scholarship plan dealer employees and a registered nurse have pled guilty to charges stemming from schemes that involved hospital personnel selling information on new mothers to registered education savings plan (RESP) dealers.
The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announced on Wednesday that Nellie Acar, a former sales representative with Global RESP Corp.; Polina Edry, former branch manager for Knowledge First Financial Inc.; Subramanian Sulur, a former assistant branch manager for C.S.T. Consultants Inc.; and Esther Cruz, a registered nurse, have all entered guilty pleas on charges stemming from the alleged misuse of confidential information about maternity patients.
According to the OSC, Acar pled guilty to one count of secret commissions and one count of using a forged document after admitting that she paid Cruz for information on maternity patients in 2014. Cruz pled guilty to two counts of receiving secret commissions.
Both Acar and Cruz received six-month conditional sentences, including three months of house arrest, two years’ probation with conditions and 340 hours of community service.
Separately, Edry and Sulur each pled guilty to one count of participating in an improper referral arrangement. According to the OSC, Edry admitted to purchasing the names of new parents from another hospital employee, Shaida Bandali, to use as possible sales leads.
In November 2015, Bandali was sentenced to two years’ probation, 300 hours of community service and receive a $36,000 fine, after she pled guilty to one count of unregistered trading in connection with allegations that she sold the personal data of maternity patients to RESP dealer reps.
Following their pleas, Edry is to appear for sentencing on Aug. 23 and sentencing submissions for Sulur are scheduled for June 22.
The charges in both cases stem from an investigation by the OSC’s Joint Serious Offences Team (JSOT), which is an enforcement partnership between the OSC, the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police.
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