The Antithesis of a Model Citizen -- the Penalty Fits the Crime

"[Soegiono Liem Swie, who has permanent resident status in Canada, raked in between $89,732 and $93,338 as a result of his] repeated acts of dishonesty. Mr. Swie's large scale employee fraud took on considerable proportions. The aggravating factors are many and significant while the mitigating factors are, at best, muted."

"Mr. Swie leveraged the enhanced level of access, responsibility and trust which accompanied his management position to process dozens of fraudulent return and refund transactions."

"His serial misappropriations went undetected for some time and only became known when a customer attempted to return a gaming chair purchased from Fredericton Staples only to have that transaction declined because records reflected her item had been returned and refunded several months before. The customer pressed the issue further because the gaming chair remained in her possession and no refund had ever been made to her."

"The matter escalated beyond Fredericton Staples to Staples Canada and ultimately triggered an internal investigation which took on increasingly extensive proportions as the layers of dishonesty and deceit associated with Mr. Swie's carefully planned, deliberate and calculated scheme were uncovered."

Judge Scott Brittain, Fredericton, New Brunswick provincial court 

"[If the judge sentenced her client to more than six months in prison for the fraud over $5,000], his right to appeal a removal order made under the [Immigration and Refugee Protection Act] will be lost and the certain outcome will be deportation."

Sabrina Winters, Swie's lawyer

As well as a jail sentence, Soegiono Liem Swie was handed a year of probation and ordered to repay $64,732 to Staples. Photo by Joe Raedle /Getty Images

 

Indonesian computer expert Soegiono Liem Swie, with a managerial position at Fredericton's Staples conspired to process 222 'bogus returns' in exchange for store gift cards for prepaid, untraceable credit cards. For his property crime he has been sentenced to 15 months in prison. The now-51-year-old had studied computer engineering at the university level in Indonesia for three years. He worked in computer sales and service for the following two decades, 16 of those years had him founding, operating and growing  his own business, at one point employing 25 people in his native Indonesia.

 

His lawyer argued before the court that her client should be penalized for his grand theft with a conditional sentence of 18 months of house arrest and a following year of probation, recommending that her client be ordered to repay Staples for his ill-got gain. Her argument was that if her client was sentenced to over six months in jail, his landed permanent resident status would be compromised.

 

While the judge acknowledged "that the prospect of deportation invites potentially grave consequences for Mr. Swie and his family given that Mr. Swie's wife and two sons are Canadian citizens",  leading to the possibility of separation were Mr. Swie to be deported back to his country of origin, he was not convinced through perusing past similar court cases, that this would necessarily be the order of things. 

Mr. Swie was employed as a sales support supervisor at the Staples store in Fredericton, representing one of four management positions, until his resignation, occasioned by the discovery of his illegal actions in defrauding the store of a significant amount of money. Authorities managed to recover $25,000 of Mr. Swie's illegally-got financial gains in the wake of the fraud discovery. His fraud, pointed out Judge Brittain, "was prolific, far-reaching, long-lasting, meticulously planned and executed with the benefit of the elevated authority and access that accompanied his management position".

 

And with that, over and above the jail sentence meted out to the man, the judge also handed Swie a year of probation, ordering him as well to repay Staples the remaining $64,732 in personal proceeds from his years of fraudulent theft. 

Staples on Prospect Street in Fredericton. (Photo: Don MacPherson/The Fredericton Independent)

"In my view, a sentence in the community ... even of the longest possible duration with the strictest of conditions, would constitute an unfit sentence because it would be disproportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. This is consistently borne out by the sentencing authority from this province for employer theft and fraud."

"[My] survey of the broader Canadian sentencing landscape reveals very few decisions where an offender facing 'collateral immigration consequences' has received a conditional sentence for large scale employee fraud."

Judge Scott Brittain