{"id":98151,"date":"2017-04-12T20:55:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T00:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=98151"},"modified":"2017-04-12T20:55:52","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T00:55:52","slug":"alberta-appeal-court-upholds-conviction-of-calgary-man-in-ponzi-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/04\/12\/alberta-appeal-court-upholds-conviction-of-calgary-man-in-ponzi-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta Appeal Court upholds conviction of Calgary man in Ponzi scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_98152\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98152\" style=\"width: 468px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/468px-Calgary_Courts_Centre-Oct_2006.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-98152\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/468px-Calgary_Courts_Centre-Oct_2006.jpg\" alt=\"A Calgary man jailed in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history has failed in his attempt to have his conviction overturned. (Photo by Qyd (Self-photographed) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.5)])\" width=\"468\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/468px-Calgary_Courts_Centre-Oct_2006.jpg 468w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/468px-Calgary_Courts_Centre-Oct_2006-234x300.jpg 234w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98152\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Calgary man jailed in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history has failed in his attempt to have his conviction overturned. (Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ACalgary_Courts_Centre-Oct_2006.JPG\">Qyd (Self-photographed) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.5)]<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>CALGARY \u2014 A Calgary man jailed in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history has failed in his attempt to have his conviction overturned.<\/p>\n<p>Milowe Brost was sentenced to 12 years in prison for an elaborate, multimillion-dollar fraud in which investors were promised unrealistic returns.<\/p>\n<p>He was also found guilty of money laundering.<\/p>\n<p>He was convicted along with his business partner Gary Sorenson.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers for Brost had argued that he should have been granted a mistrial when Sorenson, who was representing himself, admitted to jurors in his final submission that he used investment funds in a fishing lodge.<\/p>\n<p>The Alberta Court of Appeal said even if it was a confession, it didn&#8217;t point to wrongdoing by Brost.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did not implicate the appellant and used the prepositions \u201cI\u201d and \u201cme\u201d 11 times in this particular passage,\u201d the judges wrote of Sorenson&#8217;s submission.<\/p>\n<p>The judges also rejected arguments that Justice Robert Hall should not have removed a sick juror and that he erred in his charge to the jury.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe appellant has failed to establish how the conduct of the trial by his self-represented co-accused &#8230; amounted to a miscarriage of justice. He has not represented any reviewable error underlying the conviction and the appeal is dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The trial of Sorenson and Brost heard more than 2,400 investors from around the world lost up to $200 million in total. Police have estimated the figure could be as high as $400 million. Many people lost their life savings.<\/p>\n<p>Investors were promised a 34 per cent annual return on a \u201clow-risk\u201d investment of $99,000, which was supposed to grow to just over $1 million within eight years. They were told the business involved selling gold for refining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CALGARY \u2014 A Calgary man jailed in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history has failed in his &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":98152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16],"tags":[16756],"class_list":["post-98151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-calgary-man","mauthors-bill-graveland","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}