A Burnaby man who passed himself off as a certified general accountant then used his position of trust to defraud a North Vancouver business out of almost $400,000 should go to jail for between two and three years, a Crown prosecutor has argued.
Arthur Tat-Yue Wong, 52, drove around in a Porsche, went on vacations to Disney World and Las Vegas, and managed to get a mortgage approved on a home in Burnaby worth more than $775,000 – all while using the company he worked for as his personal piggy bank, prosecutor Ian Hay told a judge Tuesday.
“He obtained a job he wasn’t qualified to do,” said Hay. “He took from his employer whenever an opportunity arose.”
Wong did well through the two and a half years he defrauded his employer, a North Vancouver-based property rental company, Unique Accommodations, said Hay, while his employers had to close one of their offices, lay off staff and struggle to survive.
After he was caught, Wong showed a lack of insight into his actions and lack of empathy for his victims, Hay added. “He felt self-entitled to other people’s money.”
Wong appeared at a sentencing hearing in North Vancouver provincial court this week after pleading guilty to fraud over $5,000 and committing false pretenses.
Hay told the judge Wong was hired by Unique Accommodations by business owners Mark Teasdale and Nina Ferentinos in May 2007. The company was expanding in the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics and the owners felt they needed someone with a strong financial background to keep tabs on the business.
Wong falsified his resume and credentials. After winning the owners’ trust, Wong set about overpaying himself and his wife, who worked as a part-time assistant in the office. He also wrote 75 cheques to himself, supposedly to cover “expenses” – which he was never entitled to. He also wrote cheques directly from his employers’ account to cover his personal credit card payments – which he used to charge everything from groceries to gasoline and clothing.
Wong also got the company to sponsor a lease for the Porsche, saying he’d deduct the monthly payments of more than $1,000 from his paycheque – which he never did.
He also wrote cheques of more than $14,000 for “petty cash” and rented a storage locker under a company account for more than $6,000 to store his personal possessions.
Wong also used his position to falsify letters of employment and T4s for himself and his wife, inflating their salaries in order to qualify for a mortgage on a Burnaby home and to get a line of credit worth almost $200,000 just days after he was fired, said Hay.
“He drove a Porsche, travelled, he invested and he saved,” said Hay. “Mr. Wong was thriving.”
Meanwhile, his employers’ business was driven to the brink of ruin.
In a victim impact statement read out to the court, Ferentinos said she and her husband are small business owners who worked hard to build their company. Their misplaced trust in Wong allowed him to defraud them “from almost the moment he walked in the door,” she said.
As a result of the fraud, the company had to close its Squamish office and lay off five staff.
The fraud and its financial fallout had a huge emotional impact on her family, said Ferentinos. “He violated our trust. For us it was all we had worked for.”
Wong’s lawyer urged the judge to consider a conditional sentence to be served in the community, saying Wong does not have a criminal record and had complied with terms of his bail for the past two and a half years.
Teasdale and Ferentinos also sued Wong in civil court for the money he took from them. Wong ended up paying the couple approximately $210,000 of the $365,000 he’s alleged to have taken in an out-of-court settlement, according to related court documents.
The province also went after the Wongs’ Burnaby home as a proceed of crime under B.C.’s civil forfeiture law.
The judge has reserved his decision on sentence until next month.
