3 years sought for Fredericton lawyer who gambled away client funds | CBC News
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Seven years after a former Fredericton lawyer fled the province after gambling away hundreds of thousands of dollars of his clients’ money, he stood before a judge in Moncton apologizing.
“I am ashamed of everything that happened,” Yassin Choukri said Friday in French, apologizing in a nearly 20-minute speech to his family, former clients, the legal profession and justice system.
Choukri spoke at his sentencing hearing, which began Friday, after pleading guilty earlier this year to stealing a total of $481,148 from his clients while serving as a private lawyer between 2014 and 2016.
It was, as Crown prosecutor Vicky Doucette told reporters, a profound fall from grace for the 56-year-old.
“It is a cautionary tale,” Doucette said. “This was a gambling addiction. It shows how high someone can be and how low they can fall. He is now a man that lives with his mother.”
Choukri was once a law partner of former premier Bernard Lord and served as the chief of staff in Lord’s office before being appointed deputy attorney general in 2003.
He left the position in 2006 after Lord lost the provincial election. In 2010, the David Alward government appointed Choukri as the public intervener for hearings before the Energy and Utilities Board.
Doucette and defence lawyer Gilles Lemieux jointly recommended a three-year prison sentence.
Doucette told Justice Robert Dysart that they are not seeking a restitution order, saying there’s no prospect Choukri can repay the money.
“All of the funds that he stole from his clients — they’ve disappeared. They belong to the casinos now,” the prosecutor told reporters outside the courthouse.
“It’s a situation where Mr. Choukri, he gambled with his clients’ money. He lost and now he’s going to have to pay his debt to society. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be a monetary debt. It’s going to be a period of time in a federal institution.”
Gambled away client funds
Doucette outlined the facts of the crime Choukri now admits.
She said that when Choukri resumed his private practice after leaving government, he developed a significant gambling addiction which led to considerable financial losses.
Yassin Choukri, a Fredericton lawyer who gambled away almost half a million dollars of his clients’ money, could get three years in prison.
As a lawyer in Fredericton he held client funds in trust accounts.
A total of $481,148 was paid into trust accounts that clients never received. Doucette said Choukri would gradually withdraw money from the trust accounts in instalments of several thousand dollars to repay his credit card debt.
As his gambling addiction increased, the prosecutor said, Choukri was warned by his bank that his trust account was at risk.
In an attempt to cover the shortfall, he borrowed the maximum amount he could and deposited it in his trust account. But it still wasn’t enough.
The Crown said the money was mainly used to repay cash advances from Casino New Brunswick in Moncton.
Lemieux, the defence lawyer, said Choukri was playing poker.
On Sept. 27, 2016, two cheques drawn from the trust account bounced. On Sept. 29, 2016, he fled Fredericton without notice to his client. The Crown said Choukri considered suicide.
Choukri was eventually found in Mississauga, Ont., where he had started a program for people with a gambling addiction.
Shirley MacLean, who served as the registrar of the Law Society of New Brunswick, told the judge that they were notified Choukri had disappeared and began investigating.
MacLean told the judge that almost immediately it became clear there were financial irregularities.
MacLean said trust accounts are only set up to get client funds which can only be disbursed under specific conditions.
“One of the first rules a law student is taught is that the money in a trust account is not yours,” MacLean said.
The organization that regulates the legal profession suspended his licence and disbarred him in 2017.
MacLean said she was speaking at the sentencing hearing because it was not a faceless or victimless crime, saying some of his clients had money in a trust account from injury settlements which Choukri instead spent.
“They trusted Mr. Choukri with their money, and their hopes,” MacLean said. “He deliberately misled them.”
MacLean said the law society’s compensation fund covered some of the losses Choukri caused.
Later in the hearing, Choukri stood and addressed the judge.
“It really is inexcusable and I recognize it,” he said.
“I caused them troubles, embarrassment, delays and financial losses. And I am really disappointed in myself. I deeply regret all the wrongs that I have caused them, economically and otherwise.”
The judge will issue his sentencing decision Dec. 19.
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