AFTER the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed a bid by former Vancouver Notary Rashida Samji to overturn a criminal conviction in a $110-million Ponzi scheme on the plea that she had already been penalized by the B.C. Securities Commission, Samji has now filed for leave to appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide whether it will hear the case.
The B.C. Court of Appeal judges had in their decision noted: “It was a protective and preventive order designed to deter similar fraudulent conduct, not to denounce the appellant’s conduct or reflect her moral blameworthiness.”
The VOICE reported in January 2015: “A British Columbia Securities Commission panel has fined Rashida Samji $33 million for committing a $100 million fraud on at least 200 investors. The panel also ordered that Samji be permanently banned from participating in B.C.’s capital markets.
“In July 2014, the panel found that between approximately 2003 and January 2012, Samji, a former notary public, perpetrated a fraud when she traded securities to 200 or more investors for proceeds of at least $100 million.
“The panel determined that Samji ran a Ponzi scheme. She told investors that she would hold their money in trust, and that it would be used only to secure letters of comfort for the financing of a British Columbia winery. Investors were to earn fees for securing the letters of credit. None of this was true.”