A glamorous Toronto lawyer couple has been accused of embezzling nearly $7 million from their clients to fund their lavish lifestyles.
Nicholas Cartel and his wife Singa Bui, partners at the now-defunct Cartel & Bevy, LLP, reportedly spent more. More than $1 million for luxury goods from Hermes and Christian Dior, $2,190 a month for childcare and a $1.2 million mortgage for a luxury home in affluent downtown Toronto.
In 2022, when money went missing from the company’s trust account, a court-ordered forensic audit found a “misappropriation of funds,” the Ontario Law Society reported.
Last month, the couple They were held in contempt of court for failing to answer questions or provide any financial records.
Cartel – whose wife managed the company’s finances and various accounts as well as their family – has repeatedly denied any involvement, while Boi said through a lawyer: “He is not guilty.”
However, Ontario Superior Court Judge William Chalmers called it “inconceivable” that the cartel did not know what happened to the money and that it was “inconsistent with common sense” that he would not ask his wife about it, CBC reported.
This couple was accused of embezzling 7 million dollars from their real estate clients
Bui was in charge of the real estate side of their practice, while Cartel handled class actions and litigation.
At one point, when the cartel took out a million dollars With a mortgage on his family home, he testified under oath that the loan was to pay for repairs to his home. He claimed that “Huge pipes burst and threw sewage from a street into the house.”
The forensic audit found that the money was deposited into the company’s trust account. It shows that the couple mixes business with their personal finances.
Last fall, Cartel & Bui represented seven sellers, but never paid its clients’ mortgages as they were supposed to, according to the buyers’ lawsuits.
Instead, the lawsuits alleged, the couple took the buyers’ cash, paid the home equity to the sellers and pocketed the rest, totaling $3.3 million.
In what the CBC described as “perhaps the worst alleged embezzlement ever,” potential homeowners sent the company more than $2 million to buy homes in Toronto.
Much of the money was gone within days, the property never closed, and the buyers never got their money back.
Former Toronto office of Cartel & Bui, LLP
“Although they should know what happened to these funds, they have refused to provide that information,” a judge said in a ruling last month.
Instead of trying to implement the best orders, I find that the defendants have taken active steps to hide their finances and frustrate the court’s efforts to determine what happened.
Kartel said his wife was hospitalized for mental illness in February after becoming unwell in November — making it difficult for him to retrieve all of his work files and also to talk to his wife about the missing money.
In December, Bui said through his lawyer that Cartel “is not responsible for the improper transfer of trust funds, nor are any of the company’s associates or other employees.”
In April, the couple’s legal license was suspended.
Last week, Cartel told the news agency it plans to challenge the judge’s decision, claiming “he ignored the facts.”
“I’ve turned over all the documents that I have, thousands of pages of real estate files … I’m going to make a motion to address this, drop it or change it in some cases,” he said.
Two experts who specialize in professional legal discipline told CBC News they believe the couple could face penalties that could include fines or even jail time.
They also explained that they would likely receive misconduct charges from Ontario’s professional regulatory body for lawyers.