Boutique Toronto’s legal agency at the center of a $ 7 million cavity case appears to pass the Ontario Law Association’s Financial Point Year after CEO admits that he started stealing a customer allowance Funds an excessive lifestyle.
In the summer of 2022, when the Ontario Law (LSO) conducted a routine financial check for Cartel & Bui LLP, it did not collect red tickets-even though the company’s bank statements showed almost $ 140,000 in customer money, which had been canceled from the company’s confidence in just one month after the American Express fees.
Applications in the courts and the LSO Disciplinary Court show that the sting of Singa Buin and her husband Nicholas cartell continued for another seven months before someone complained to the lawyer for any misuse of money.
It took another seven months before the Law Society researcher visited the company’s offices and asked for a financial document, and then five months before the company was placed in lobbying. At that point, more than $ 7 million from customers had been stolen, mainly home buyers and sellers in the South Ostari.
All of this raises serious questions about the ability of LSO to protect citizens from fraud by lawyers, several lawyers and cartel and bui victims.
LSO “did not do their work,” the victim says
“They did not work,” said Nancy Mars, a former customer who was over $ 200,000, which the company had adhered to after his home in 2021 when he resolved his divorce.
“If they had examined the events deeper and checked them in the way they should have been checked, then … a lot of heartache, a lot of problems would have been avoided.”
But a lawyer and forensic accountant David Debenham, who has challenged other fraud lawyers, says the bigger problem is that while LSO auditors are particularly asking for legal firm bank records, confidence accounts are not designed to grip.
“They just want to know if you have documents,” he said. “They assume honesty. They really try to catch people who can’t make accounting and make sincere mistakes … It doesn’t get fraud, and it happens all the time for millions and millions of dollars.”
Concern is particularly acute in areas such as real estate, which is required to legally use a lawyer to buy or sell almost all Ontario’s home, which means that millions of dollars typically flow to lawyers through both buyers and seller confidence accounts. This causes a risk that a lawyer at both ends of the agreement could steal funds Previously told CBC News.
Cartel and Bui case is not the only recent example of the alleged abuse of trust: In April, the now retired lawyer was from fraud Related to income from the customer’s business sales.
Asking what will be routinely certified in lawyers’ trust accounts if Debenham replied closely: “Sweet fk all.”
Insultations found through auditing are expanded: LSO
LSO told the CBC News that its attorneys’ examination “includes review of financial statements to ensure compliance with the legislative regulatory requirements. Any financial matters defined in the license holder recorded in the Spot check shall be related to professional regulation.”
But LSO said it was legally forbidden to comment on the details of the cartel and Bui LLP inspections in 2022, including answering questions about why the company’s confidence account did not seem to have been asked.
Reports of disciplinary procedures against Buin and Cartel reveal that the auditor sent an email to the company in August 2022 to say that it had been selected for the financial “check” as part of the LSO Spot inspection program.
The auditor provided to Bui, the real estate lawyer and the CEO of the company for a week to provide a number of financial information, including bank statements for all company trust accounts in June 2022 and the Balance of Client Trust accounts.
LSO does not say whether the company actually abandoned these documents, but generally ignoring such requests will lead to disciplinary action against lawyers, and there is no information on the fact that there is no cartel & bui or its partners at the time.
According to both Debenham and Marsilla, the documents shown by these documents should have been obtained for further research.
Company records indicate 28 payments to Amex
The CBC News received part of the company’s account statement in June 2022, as well as a list of certain major transactions of the entire month of former customers of civil law.
The data shows 28 withdrawals from the account of trust, amounts ranging from $ 1,000 to $ 20,000 and a total of $ 138,800, simply marked as “amex”. The other two payments, totaling $ 2,090, are at the childcare center in the center of Toronto.
Trust accounts are strictly regulated lawyer bank accounts that keep only customers’ money and not businesses, so it is unusual – though not unheard of – that they are used to pay the credit card.
“Credit cards do not leave the trust accounts on a regular course,” said Debenham, who is also the president of the Certified Forensic Researchers’ Association of Certified Canada. Although it is possible that the client could direct the lawyer to pay a credit card invoice by using the money from a trust account, he says that there should be a written request and the lawyer of the lawyer should have requested these requests.
Another victim who lost money in Cartel & Buin’s embezzlement said, “It is crazy that one of these banking records in the accounting examination … signs of fraud – some of the childcare has been charged directly from the lawyer’s confidence – and did not notice anything.”
The CBC News agreed not to identify this person because they continue to discuss with LSO on fund compensation, which can help reduce the losses of a lawyer.
“It’s not an understanding and is very frustrating.”
Lawyers face potential separation, crime charges
Bui is already approved In the civilian insurance, which he started from the Stocking Stock in 2014. He said he originally took smaller quantities to “end”, but eventually selected tens of thousands at a time for “luxurious holidays”, funding for his child to his children and “stylish furnishings and” expensive furniture and “.
The cartel, which focused on group deals and trials, has repeatedly denied that he has his hands in the deceit and accused his wife, which he says to manage the economy for their company and their household.
Both lawyers were temporarily suspended from the law of law in April 2024, while Law Society continued to study.
The LSO then raised disciplinary accusations against Bui in March this year. Last week, LSO also raised disciplined accusations against the cartel, claiming that clients’ abuse would abuse 20 cases, misleading customers about their money events and negligence on their money.
There are no hearing impaired people with these accusations. If the Law Society court confirms the charges, the assumed penalty for the abuse of customer assets is a distinction.
Bui and the cartel are also criminal charges, which were announced in July.
Both lawyers spent a while in prison last year after they were discovered in the court’s contempt for non -compliance with the judge’s orders given in the lawsuits presented against them to explain what happened to the missing money.