Thursday, July 18, 2013

Ex-immigration board judge appeals conviction on sex bribes

Steve Ellis leaves 361 University Ave. court
TORONTO - Kudos to each of the venerable judges on Ontario’s Court of Appeal for keeping a straight face.

Steve Ellis, the disgraced former immigration board judge, is appealing his conviction and sentence for trying to extort sexual favours from a Korean refugee claimant in exchange for a positive ruling at her hearing. Despite a damning video of his smarmy proposition surreptitiously recorded by the woman’s boyfriend at a downtown coffee shop, his lawyer says Ellis should never have been convicted in the first place because he wasn’t after sex — just friendship.

Yeah, right.

“There is no explicit mention of sex,” argued lawyer Mark Halfyard. “This could have simply been a platonic relationship” sought by a “lonely, unhappy man who has some need for companionship.”

It didn’t take long for Justices John Laskin, Eileen Gillese and George Strathy to signal Wednesday that they weren’t buying that ridiculous argument and that Ellis’s conviction will stand.  (more...)

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