Julius Melnitzer is a Canadian freelance legal writer and former lawyer.
He worked for the law firm now known as Cohen and Highley.
In 1992, he pleaded guilty to 42 counts of fraud in relation to defrauding five Canadian banks out of $67 million. He was sentenced to nine years in jail. [1] He was a founding partner of "Cohen, Highley" in London, Ontario.
It was the largest personal loan fraud in Canadian history. [2]
After being disbarred, Melnitzer became a prominent legal affairs writer and as of January 2021, has bylines in the Financial Post. [1] [3]
Melnitzer was a successful and high-profile lawyer in London, Ontario, [4] when he began a scheme to print fake stock certificates to be used as collateral to get loans from major Canadian banks. He was caught when an officer at National Bank of Canada became suspicious and asked for an inspection of the certificates. Melnitzer was arrested three days later. He was later disbarred, and at his sentencing the judge read a "scathing" indictment on his actions. [5] Melnitzer was given day parole two years later, and then full parole in 1995. [1]
Melnitzer's partner at the time of the fraud, Fletcher Dawson, and he was duped for about $100,000. [6] Future London MPP Chris Bentley was an articling student at Melnitzer's firm. [6]
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, is a Canadian-British politician, newspaper publisher, businessman, and writer.
Christopher Bentley is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2003 to 2013. He represented the riding of London West and was a cabinet minister in the government of Dalton McGuinty.
Albert Johnson Walker, also known as The Rolex Killer, is a Canadian criminal serving a prison term for embezzlement and murder. He is known for murdering an Englishman whose identity he had been assuming, and for posing for years as though his daughter was his wife.
Garth Drabinsky is a Canadian film and theatrical producer and entrepreneur. In 2009, he was convicted and sentenced to prison for fraud and forgery. The sentence was reduced from 7 to 5 years in prison, on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear a subsequent appeal. In April 2023, a judge dismissed Drabinsky’s defamation lawsuit against American Actor’s Equity for placing him on their ‘Do Not Work’ list, and in July 2024 the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this dismissal, along with his claim that the union's conduct violated antitrust law. Drabinsky has attempted 3 comebacks all resulting in failure and millions of investor dollars being lost.
Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP (Gowlings) was a Canadian and international law firm, with about 700 legal professionals in 10 offices in Canada, as well as in London, Moscow, and Beijing. The firm offered legal support in business law, advocacy/litigation and intellectual property law.
The Patti Starr affair, sometimes referred to as Pattigate or the Patti Starr scandal, was a political controversy that affected the Ontario Liberal government from 1989 to 1990. Patti Starr was a fundraiser and supporter who made illegal political contributions through her role as head of a charity called the Toronto Section of the National Council of Jewish Women. Through her scheme she made $160,000 in contributions to federal, provincial, and municipal politicians. In particular she contributed to Liberal campaign funds during the 1987 Ontario provincial election, including those of some senior cabinet ministers. When the scheme was revealed it contributed to the downfall of the Liberal government in 1990. At the time it was one of the biggest political scandals in Ontario history.
The 2006 Ontario terrorism case is the plotting of a series of attacks against targets in Southern Ontario, Canada, and the June 2, 2006 counter-terrorism raids in and around the Greater Toronto Area that resulted in the arrest of 14 adults and 4 youths . These individuals have been characterized as having been inspired by al-Qaeda.
Patrick J. LeSage is the former Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Taylor, Bean & Whitaker was a top-10 wholesale mortgage lending firm in the United States, the fifth-largest issuer of Government National Mortgage Association securities. Their slogan was "Perfecting the Art of Mortgage Lending".
Gerald Daniel Blanchard is a Canadian best known for orchestrating complex frauds and heists on three continents.
Peter Demeter is a Hungarian-born Canadian former real estate developer convicted in 1974 of arranging the murder of his wife. It was the longest trial in Canadian history to that date, and revealed that both husband and wife may have been plotting to murder the other to collect a CA$1 million insurance policy. The suspected contract killer Demeter hired was identified but never found.
Gordon Howard "Paddy" Fitzgerald was a Canadian politician in the province of Nova Scotia. He was a former Speaker of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Fitzgerald was born in Cochrane, Ontario.
Hersch Harry Kopyto is a Canadian political activist and commentator who is best known for his legal career in which he often crusaded on behalf of underdogs and for his frequent conflicts with the legal establishment. Disbarred as a lawyer in 1989, he continued to practise as a paralegal until 2015 and worked as an unlicensed legal advocate and researcher until barred, in 2020, from conducting any legal work.
Brian H. Greenspan, is a Canadian criminal defence lawyer. He is the senior partner in the Toronto firm Greenspan, Humphrey, Makepeace LLP and one of the most prominent defence lawyers in Canada.
Michael Moldaver is a former Canadian judge. He was a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from his 2011 appointment by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper until his retirement in 2022. Before his elevation to the nation's top court, he served as a judge at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal for Ontario for over 20 years. A former criminal lawyer, Moldaver is considered an expert in both Canadian criminal law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Tapishar Sher Singh is a former lawyer who was disbarred in 2007 by the Law Society of Upper Canada.
Bruce Carson was an aide and senior advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. He was convicted of two counts of fraud, one was during the 1980s and again in 1990. His 1980 conviction resulted in prison time and his disbarment by the Law Society of Upper Canada for two counts of defrauding clients. Carson is now a contributor to numerous national publications, and a regular contributor to right-wing news aggregate, News Hub Nation, headed by former Conservative Cabinet Minister, Monte Solberg.
Sidney Leonard Jaffe was an American-born Canadian businessman who was kidnapped from outside his Toronto home in 1981 by American bounty hunters Timm Johnsen and Daniel Kear and transported to Florida after failing to appear for a trial there on charges of land sales fraud. His conviction on the fraud charges was overturned on appeal; his conviction on an additional charge of failure to appear for trial was upheld, but he was paroled after two years and returned to Canada. At the request of the Canadian government, Jaffe declined to appear at a new Florida trial on further land fraud charges in 1985. Johnsen and Kear were extradited to Canada and convicted of kidnapping in 1986, but were set free pending appeal, and their sentences were reduced to time served in 1989, after which they returned to the United States. The Jaffe incident caused significant tensions in Canada–United States relations, and resulted in a 1988 exchange of letters between the two countries on cross-border kidnappings.
Robert Patrick Armstrong is a Canadian lawyer and retired judge. He served on the Court of Appeal for Ontario from 2002 until his retirement in 2013. Before serving on the bench, Armstrong was a partner at Torys and was lead counsel in the Dubin Inquiry on steroid use in Canadian sports. After leaving the bench, Armstrong joined Arbitration Place, a Canadian group specializing in alternative dispute resolution.
Rajvinder Grewal is a former Canadian politician who represented the riding of Brampton East in the House of Commons of Canada from 2015 to 2019. Elected as a Liberal in the 2015 Canadian federal election, he resigned from caucus in 2018 after a police investigation into his extensive gambling debts, and did not stand in the 2019 Canadian federal election. In September 2020, he was charged by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for breach of trust and fraud over $5,000.