A Crown prosecutor called for a four-year sentence for a man convicted of bilking a Red Deer businessman out of $800,000 about eight years ago.
Tony Bell, with the special prosecutions office out of Calgary, said a message needs to be sent to Benjamin Daniel Koorbatoff, 46, who has three previous convictions for fraud over $5,000. In 2011, he was sentenced to two years in prison for stealing nearly $500,000 from a Calgary oil firm.
That criminal record calls for a stiffer penalty this time, Bell told Red Deer Court of King’s Bench Justice Sherry Kachur.
“We know two years didn’t work,” he said, calling for a four-year sentence as well as a restitution order for $800,000.
“Hopefully, that will stop him this time.”
Koorbatoff was found guilty after a trial a year ago of convincing Terry Raymond, who owned an oilfield business at the time, to give him $800,000 through four different cheques to buy shares in another company from September 2015 to August 2016. However, the shares were not purchased.
Raymond, who has since up started up and is running another company, told the judge what effect the fraud had on him at the time.
Reading from a victim impact statement, Raymond said he and his family trusted Koorbatoff, who lives in the Lacombe area. The fraud came at a vulnerable time in his life, both emotionally and financially and the crime led to a further decline in his mental health.
Raymond told Koorbatoff that he will keep praying for him and that he will one day face God’s judgment.
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Defence lawyer Maurice Collard told the judge a two-year conditional sentence order (CSO), which would include a stretch of house arrest followed by a period under a curfew, would be appropriate. As well, Koorbatoff could pay an $800,000 victims of crime surcharge.
Collard said Koorbatoff had significant health issues, including a massive heart attack last Thanksgiving and a recent knee replacement, that would be better treated outside the prison system.
Koorbatoff has started up and sold a number of companies has contributed to his community by sponsoring many sports teams and donating to good causes such as STARS. He continues to operate a number of businesses, such as a cannabis dispensary and a brokerage company for oil and gas equipment.
Collard said the penalties he has proposed will have an impact on his client.
“A CSO is going to hurt him. An $800,000 victim of crime surcharge is going to hurt him significantly,” he told the judge.
Collard said the fraud did not involve the kind of breach of trust at the heart of many cases. Both Koorbatoff and Raymond were experienced business people engaged in complicated business arrangements.
“Mr. Koorbatoff was not ripping off grandmothers. Two companies were engaged in sophisticated business transactions.”
The judge said she will deliver her sentence on Thursday morning.