A former Ontario government employee, Sanjay Madan, has admitted guilt in defrauding the province of over $47 million and has been sentenced to a decade in prison. Madan, who held a senior role as an IT director within the Ministry of Education, acknowledged his involvement in two distinct fraud schemes during his tenure.
One of the fraudulent activities was linked to a COVID-19 relief benefit Madan developed while working for the province. Subsequently, he and his family faced accusations of unlawfully banking cheques intended for the beneficiaries of the relief program. The charges extended to Madan’s wife, Shalini Madan, and their two sons, whose names were associated with some of the accounts involved in the fraud.
According to Chris Sewrattan, Madan’s defense attorney, his client’s motivation for pleading guilty was to shield his family from legal consequences. Sewrattan emphasized Madan’s effort to ensure that he alone took responsibility for the crimes, leading to the withdrawal of charges against his wife and the absence of charges against his sons.
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The province had filed a civil claim in the fall of 2020, asserting that Madan’s family “exploited their positions of employment with Ontario and unique access to the Support for Families Program (SFFP) and payment processing system.”
Madan faced criminal charges in 2021, with allegations that he defrauded the government of at least $11 million and accepted kickbacks totaling $30 million. Maher Abdurahman, a spokesperson for the Attorney General, confirmed the charges, including two counts of fraud, two counts of breach of trust, one count of money laundering, and one count of possession of property obtained by crime.
In addition to the 10-year prison sentence, Madan is subject to a restitution order of approximately $47.4 million. This amount includes the $10.8 million misappropriated from the Support for Families Program, designed to cover expenses for children learning at home during the peak of the pandemic.
Madan has already repaid $30 million of the embezzled funds and assets to the Ontario government. However, he faces the challenge of repaying the remaining amount within five years of his release from prison. Failure to meet this obligation could result in another six years of incarceration.
Sewrattan shared that Madan is currently experiencing a “mix of emotions” following the sentencing, acknowledging the daunting prospect of prison while expressing gratitude for the opportunity to put this chapter behind him.
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