Former Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro has been released from jail pending an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada for his conviction on election fraud.
On Sept. 13, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed Del Mastro’s second appeal for his conviction on a charge of election fraud and ruled there were no errors made in his original trial.
Del Mastro returned to the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont., to continue to serve his sentence of 30-day jail sentence.
However, Del Mastro’s lawyer, Scott Fenton, says the former Conservative MP was released last week after applying to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal.
“Mr. Del Mastro was released last Thursday on bail pending his application for leave to appeal to the SCC,” Fenton wrote via email.
On his official Facebook page, Del Mastro on Tuesday morning expressed his disappointment with the Ontario Court of Appeal and argued the court system failed to take into account the commercial value of a good or service provided to election campaigns.
“The Ontario Court of Appeal has taken the position that determining the commercial value of a good or service is too arduous a task for Elections Canada and that it would be confusing to the public,” Del Mastro wrote.
“They have further ruled that no services whatsoever need to be provided to campaigns by service providers listed under section 407 3 (e) of the Canada Elections Act.
“Both determinations cannot be correct. With this in mind I have directed my attorney Scott Fenton to take leave to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada.”
In October 2014, Del Mastro was found guilty of election fraud. Court heard he overspent in the 2008 federal election campaign and made attempts to cover it up by requesting back-dated invoices totaling $21,000 for vote polling software from a former company called Holinshed.
In June 2015 Del Mastro was sentenced to a month in jail along with four months of house arrest and 18 months probation.
He spent one night in jail before he was released for his first divisional court appeal which he lost in April 2016. He returned to jail for another six days before a second release for another Ontario Court of Appeal hearing held in June of this year.
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