Former Montreal school board official recounts fallout from corruption charges
CBC
The defence for Caroline Mastantuono, who once led Lester B. Pearson School Board's international department, is seeking an absolute discharge after she pleaded guilty to charges related to fraud and embezzlement in May.
During sentencing arguments Tuesday afternoon, Mastantuono was questioned by her lawyer, Jonathan Gordon, at length.
She recounted how she became the manager of the international department for the Montreal-based English-language school board in 2003, and was promoted to director in 2013.
In June 2016, Mastantuono said she was suspended by the school board for financial mismanagement. She was subsequently fired as were two of her children, who also worked at the school board.
By then, the school board's international department had grown from seven students to nearly 800, bringing in millions of dollars in tuition.
"I was devastated," said Mastantuono, who was accompanied to court by her husband and three children. "I worked day and night and was proud of the job I'd done."
Following Mastantuono's dismissal from the school board, she started Rising Phoenix International, a company that helped recruit international students for private colleges.
To cover startup costs and overhead, Mastantuono said she and her husband mortgaged their home.
By 2019, the company was doing so well, it started its own private technical college, M College, in Montreal's southwestern LaSalle borough. It offered courses in everything from multimedia to early childhood education.
Mastantuono said they wanted to add more programming and potentially start a language school. They began meeting with different financial institutions to secure a loan.
But in November 2020, Mastantuono and her daughter Christina, who had worked with her mother in the international department, were charged by UPAC — Quebec's anti-corruption unit.
The agreed upon statement of facts outlines the use of two schemes to commit various offences between June 2014 and March 2016.
The first scheme involved the forgery of tuition receipts that were used to secure Quebec Acceptance Certificates (CAQs), which authorize international students to study in the province.
The court documents show Mastantuono instructed staff to forge a total of 81 false receipts, misleading authorities into issuing CAQs to students who didn't meet financial requirements.
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