Last month the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a 2009 fraud conviction that sentenced local theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky to jail. Although the more recent ruling reduced the sentence term from seven years to five years, Drabinsky’s lawyer Edward Greenspan said they are considering filing another appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada. “He’s looking very, very carefully at the judgment of the courts as to whether such grounds exist,” said Greenspan, regarding Drabinsky. “Until we file an application, he cannot get bail.”
According to court documents, the fraud conviction followed claims that Drabinsky manipulated financial statements and thus inflated profits for his company, Livent — run with partner Myron Gotlieb — which declared bankruptcy in 1998.
Greenspan said the first step is to file an application for a leave to appeal, so the court can assess whether the grounds for an appeal exist.
The Ontario Court of Appeal reduced Drabinsky’s sentence because the 2009 judge failed, according to the court judgment, “to take into account the absence of any evidence of the actual financial loss occasioned by the frauds.”