SISO trial continues

The final witness is on the stand at the trial of two former executives of an agency that once helped newcomers settle into Hamilton. Morteza Jafarpour was the Executive Director and Robert Salama was the Financial Director at Settlement and Integration Services Organization, or SISO. Both face several charges related to fraud and altered documents.

Lisa Hepfner has been following this trial and she joins us live with more.

The last witness on the stand Monday was one of SISO’s two computer specialists. They were the ones that actually changed payroll documents, receipts and bank statements. They say it was at the direction of Jafarpour and Salama. But earlier, we heard from a forensic accountant contracted to the RCMP who went through SISO’s books.

Scott McBride testified that he compared a year’s worth of altered payroll documents that were submitted to Citizenship and Immigration Canada by SISO to collect funding, with the actual documents that were prepared to pay about 140 employees.

Court had already heard that the number of employees and the amounts they were paid differed in the two versions of payroll.

But McBride also followed the money trail. He found that two employees were getting $2,000 to $2,500 extra in every pay period, or twice a month. Amounts not entered into SISO’s financial records. Those employees were Robert Salama and Nese Burgaz, another former manager.

The accountant found no big payments to Morteza Jafarpour that were unaccounted for in SISO’s financial books. But Jafarpour did receive a so-called RSP payment of about $46,000 at the end of 2009. Money that went straight into his bank account. McBride said several employees got RSP bonuses that weren’t really RSP’s, and he said there was liberal use of the company bank card, and an unusually large petty cash supply.

Radu Bogdan gave testimony about how he altered documents and how he came to bring those to police after the investigation was getting heated at SISO. His cross examination continues Tuesday, and then Jafarpour’s defence lawyer Dean Paquette will start laying out his case.