Toronto lawyer, partner face fraud, breach-of-trust charges
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A Toronto lawyer is facing 41 fraud and breach-of-trust offences while her partner at the firm was also charged.
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In a news release, Toronto Police alleged that, between 2021 and 2024, the accused, a lawyer and partner in the firm Cartel & Bui LLP, defrauded parties involved in numerous real estate transactions including her own clients, of more than $5,000.
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Singa Bui, 42, of Toronto, is charged with 24 counts of fraud over $5,000, 17 counts of criminal breach of trust, and possession of proceeds of crime over $5,000.
Nicholas Cartel, 61, of Toronto, a partner in the firm Cartel & Bui LLP, is separately charged with fraud over $5,000.
Police announced the charges on Thursday.
According to earlier media reports including from Toronto Sun columnist Michele Mandel, the two, who are a couple, have since shuttered their Liberty Village firm following lawsuits over previous allegations that they embezzled money they were holding in trust from real-estate deals.
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In 2024, Ontario Superior Court Justice William Chalmers found the couple in contempt for not producing key financial records and answering questions about the missing cash.
Bui admitted to pilfering millions in client money to support her and her family’s lavish lifestyle.
In April 2024, the Law Society Tribunal provisionally suspended the couple’s licences to practise law. According to the ruling, by the time the bank froze the firm’s account in December 2023, there was a shortfall of at least $2.5 million involving two clients who said money was deposited in trust and never paid out.
Cartel didn’t dispute these issues were of “very serious concern,” the ruling said, but his position was that he didn’t know at the time that trust monies “had been misappropriated and/or mishandled.”
Anyone who might be a victim of fraud can report the incident to police and to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre’s online reporting system or by phone at 1-888-495-8501. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-2222, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).
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