A former Vancouver lawyer guilty of one of the largest real estate frauds in Canadian history has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Martin Wirick, 54, has also been ordered to pay $2 million in restitution to the Law Society of B.C., which has reimbursed victims of the fraud. More than $40 million has been paid out to victims, including cases that aren't included in Wirick's guilty plea.
In handing down sentencing Tuesday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Patrick Dohm said Wirick had brought shame to his profession.
Wirick pleaded guilty to two counts each of forgery and fraud in connection with more than 100 fraudulent transactions between 1999 and 2002 that left property owners, organizations and financial institutions on the hook for millions of dollars.
Wirick sold and refinanced properties but didn't use the money to pay off existing mortgages, leaving property owners with debt they believed had already been paid off.
He was disbarred in 2002.
When Wirick confessed to the fraud in a letter to the Law Society of B.C. in 2002, the group launched its own investigation, took over Wirick's practice and dipped into a special lawyer-financed fund designed to help victims of legal fraud.
Some of the victims were facing foreclosures on their homes.
"We recognized as soon as the Wirick matter come to our attention that we had to restore public confidence," Gordon Turriff, president of the law society, said in an interview Tuesday.
"We feel it was necessary in order to ensure that everybody who lost money as a result of this fraud was made whole," the B.C. Law Society's communications manager, Michael Bernard, said.
"It was important for the lawyers of B.C. to step up to the plate and do the right thing by paying extra over the last five years."
Since 2002, lawyers in B.C. have put their own cash into the Law Society's compensation fund. The lawyers' annual fees for the fund jumped from $250 to $600 in 2003 and have remained high ever since.
"This year is the last year that extra fee will be charged," Bernard said. "After 2009, we will return to more normal fee levels."
James Bond, vice-president of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association, said the case threatened to damage the reputation of the entire legal profession.
"When news was out there, there's no question that many of us felt that Mr. Wirick's actions had tarred the profession," Bond said.
Lawyers felt a duty to step up and right the wrong, he said.
The law society also introduced new rules designed to prevent such fraud from happening again, specifically requiring stricter reporting of trust accounts and mortgage discharges.
Wirick, who has since filed for bankruptcy, claims he never benefited financially and that most of the money went to his co-accused, Tarsem Singh Gill.
Gill's case has yet to go to trial and he has not entered a plea.
With files from the Canadian Press
