Jail is required for convicted Calgary conman Dave Guylenz Mitchell Beauvais, a city judge ruled Wednesday.
Calgary Court of King’s Bench Justice Darren Reed agreed with Crown prosecutor Greg Whiteside that the community-based conditional sentence sought by defence lawyer Funda Mutlay wouldn’t adequately punish her client.
Instead, Reed sentenced Beauvais, who has since relocated to Ottawa, to 28 months in a federal penitentiary. Whiteside had proposed a 30-month term.
In seeking that punishment during sentencing submissions in April, Whiteside argued schemes like the one perpetrated by Beauvais take advantage of the anonymity of the internet and require deterrence.
“The forms and means of fraud are proliferating in society,” he told Reed.
Whiteside said much of Beauvais’ scamming occurred during the pandemic, when even more business was pushed online.
Beauvais’ sentencing decision was delayed to allow him to travel to Calgary from Ottawa. During sentencing submissions the offender appeared via video link from the nation’s capital.
Mutlay had sought a conditional sentence, saying such a term could still meet the goals of general deterrence and denunciation.
“Incarceration is not the only mechanism through which those objectives can be met,” she said, in proposing 12 months of house arrest as part of a two-year conditional term.
“A custodial sentence here would add little to deterrence,” Mutlay told Reed.
Beauvais, 39, pleaded guilty last fall to charges of fraud and uttering forged documents for a scheme that used phony passports, driver’s licences and social insurance cards to make false claims for loans from Alberta Student Aid programs.
Fraudsters collected personal information of individuals and forged documents used to make student loan applications and open bank accounts to receive disbursements.
Loans to 15 different named individuals whose identities were stolen were approved, totaling more than a half-million dollars, although just under $200,000 was actually disbursed.
Mutlay told court her client was experiencing instability and homelessness in his life and was desperate to make ends meet at the time.
Reed found the fact Beauvais’ crimes involved identity theft made them more aggravating than fraud offences involving employee theft.
“Courts seem more inclined to grant CSOs in the latter than the former. I find this is due to the more egregious nature of identity theft,” Reed said.
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