Norbourg ex-CEO gets 13 years for fraud

Former Norbourg CEO Vincent Lacroix has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for defrauding thousands of small-time investors of an estimated $115 million.

Judge Richard Wagner handed down the sentence Friday morning in a Montreal courtroom, describing Lacroix as the biggest fraudster in Canadian history.

In his 15-page ruling, Wagner noted that Lacroix's sentence is the toughest penalty ever handed out for white-collar crime in Canada. He also remarked that the Norbourg affair demonstrated major fault lines within the financial sector.

Dozens of Lacroix's fraud victims lined up outside the courtroom for the sentencing on Friday, leaving courthouse officials scrambling to set up a video link in a separate courtroom to accommodate everyone.

Lacroix pleaded guilty to nearly 200 fraud and fraud-related offences last month, after $115 million of small-time investors' money disappeared from his now-defunct financial firm.

Lacroix was set to stand trial by jury on those accusations, along with five of his alleged collaborators, but in a surprise move he pleaded guilty just as the proceedings were set to get underway in late September. 

Crown prosecutors were seeking a sentence between 10 and 14 years in prison. Lacroix's lawyer had asked his client be sentenced to between 10 and 12 years.

Lacroix likely won't serve the full 13 years, because of prior time served behind bars while waiting for his sentencing.  

Sentence is cold comfort for victims

Many of Lacroix's victims who felt shortchanged after his guilty plea last month were at the courthouse on Friday.

Jean-Guy Houle, the Montreal grandfather of two, said he wanted to watch Lacroix stand trial, as retribution for the estimated $195,000 of life savings he lost after investing with Norbourg.

Houle had been saving that money to pay for his grandchildren's education.

Houle will likely never see all that money again, and on Friday said there is little comfort knowing Lacroix is heading to jail.

"I was sending him thoughts by ESP, so that he would feel bad," Houle said in French to a crowd of reporters outside the courtroom. "He's going to spend Christmas behind bars, and we'll be with our families, while he's surrounded by criminals, and he won't be with his children."

"For a man who did what he did, he doesn't have much common sense."

Quebec's Liberal government is going to redirect some $6 million in taxes it collected from Norbourg to Lacroix's victims.