For variety, I'll narrate this hunt the way I actually started it, Google first then a proper CANLII reading at the end (I skimmed CANLII at the outset but the best bits are always hidden in the least likely decisions)
Stuart Leis (Stu, to be unfairly flippant) has a fairly small YouTube presence, dominated by his (under-appreciated, judging by the hits) videos of a ride in a B17! http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTKXegLq0UzR1wbF0kWpOBg
Stuart Leis and Bud Leis are having a giant auction of their farm equipment http://www.auctionbill.com/Saskatchewan ... 9721.shtml . If any Quatlosians want a tractor they can bid online: http://www.bidspotter.com/en-us/auction ... bscho10088 . Hopefully just because they decided to retire or something, but I suspect that after a decade the wheels of the justice system have finally forced him to pay some bad debts from 2004.
Stu seems to have been a very minor contributor to a blog called In Pursuit of Happiness http://inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.c ... rstanding/ . Read all about his exploits sending his NOUI/COR to every RCMP detachment in the province, and his chat with the poor corporal sent out to check how crazy he is (quite, but not shotgun crazy it seems).
Is Stu one of those genteel freemen who send crazy documents but stay out of trouble? Sadly no. CANLII has a few decisions on him: http://www.canlii.org/en/sk/#search/jId ... te&id=Leis
Let's start with the 2004 rulings. 3 of the first 4 are rulings in a 2004 trial for passing hundreds of thousands of dollars in bad cheques. Is he OPCA yet? Heck yeah! Let me quote the charges for flavour:
The summarized 2004 rulings are roughly as follows:THAT HE, the said Stuart F. Leis, between on or about April 1, 2002, and September 20, 2002, both dates inclusive, at Kamsack District and elsewhere in the Province of Saskatchewan did defraud one or more persons by deceit, falsehood, or other fraudulent means, by using worthless financial instruments, to wit: one or more of the following:
a) a cheque dated May 4, 2002, payable to “Sydor Farm Equipment”, in the amount of $10,400.00 for a “Degelman Rock Picker”;
b) a cheque dated May 4, 2002, payable to “Farm World Equipment Ltd.”, in the amount of $25,951.00 for a “Bourgeault 7200 Heavy Harrow”;
c) a cheque dated May 9, 2002, payable to “Green Acres Equipment Ltd.”, in the amount of $61,555.00 for a “John Deere 4955 Tractor”;
d) A “Treasury Direct” cheque dated July 18, 2002, payable to “Dell Computer”, in the amount of $39,371.46, as payment for computer equipment;
e) A “Private Treasury Direct Draft” dated August 20, 2002, payable to “Young’s Equipment Inc.”, in the amount of $45,000.00 (United States Dollars), as payment for a 2002 Versatile Model 2210 tractor;
f) a “Private Treasury Direct Draft” dated August 23, 2002, payable to “Young’s Equipment Inc.”, in the amount of $51,500.00 (United States Dollars), as payment for a 2002 Versatile Model 2210 tractor;
g) two “Private Treasury Direct” drafts dated August 26, 2002, and August 28, 2002, payable to “Dodge City Auto Ltd.”, in the amount of $34,150.00 and $265.00 (United States Dollars), respectively, as payment for a 2002 Dodge truck;
h) a “Private Treasury Direct Draft” dated August 27, 2002, payable to “Young’s Equipment Ltd.”, in the amount of $50,000.00 (United States Dollars);
i) a “Private Treasury Direct Draft” dated August 29, 2002, payable to “Bennett Dunlop Ford”, in the amount of $43,035.00 (United States Dollars), as payment for a 2003 Ford F250 Truck;
j) a “Private Treasury Direct Draft” dated August 31, 2002, payable to “Bouchard Imports”, in the amount of $35,790.00 (United States Dollars), as payment for a 1989 John Deere 4955 tractor;
k) a “Private Treasury Direct Draft” dated August 30, 2002, payable to “Young’s Equipment Ltd.”, in the amount of $109,506.00 (United States Dollars), as payment for a 2002 Case model 2388 Combine, a Case model 2015 Combine Header, and a Case model 1010 Combine Header;
and did thereby commit an offence contrary to Section 380(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.
AND FURTHER
COUNT FOUR
THAT HE, the said Stuart F. Leis, between on or about June 1, 2002, and September 1, 2002, both dates inclusive, at Kamsack District, and elsewhere in the Province of Saskatchewan, did attempt to defraud the Government of Canada by deceit, falsehood, or other fraudulent means, by using worthless financial instruments, to wit: one or more of the following:
a) a cheque dated June 7, 2002, payable to Canada Customs and Revenue Agency in the amount of $37,494.76 for “Fred Leis #612 718 486”.
b) a cheque dated June 14, 2002, payable to “Receiver General”, in the amount of $22,940.91 for “Account #622 866 416”;
c) a cheque dated July 26, 2002, payable to “Receiver General of Canada”, in the amount of $37,828.53 for “Account #621 718 486”; [was the first SIN a typo? And why is CANLII publishing SINs anyway?]
d) a cheque dated August 28, 2002, payable to Receiver General”, in the amount of $9,823.38 for “Account #630 762 896”;
and did commit an offence contrary to Section 380(1)(a) and Section 463 of the Criminal Code.
-no, you can't get sworn affidavits from all the crown's witnesses, and you can't get over a hundred subpoenas for just about every bank manager in the province
-no, you still can't get frivolous subpoenas (over 200 now, including magazines and mail order companies, who I guess got some of the bad cheques)
-(court of appeal rejection of an appeal of a previous conviction, except for count 25 which the crown said should be quashed. How effectively did he argue the appeal? Not well:
(I think (guess) that this is basically related to the same types and era of offences as the ongoing trial, but Crown proceeded summarily on these charges and so they were resolved first.)As to the rest of the convictions, neither Mr. Leis’ notice of appeal nor his factum raised any defence to the charges known to the law. The bond or bonds of which Mr. Leis spoke as having settled any claims against him did not have the effect at law that he claimed for them, and did not constitute a defence to the charges. As to the evidence itself, it supported the convictions.
-sentencing for the bad cheque charges (now convictions). The judge found that Stu wasn't delusional in his beliefs, just too proud to admit he was wrong, and so a conditional sentence (3 months of house arrest followed by 5 months of curfew) would rehabilitate him. This is where old grouches like me get snarky about lenient judges, but for one thing Stu already served 9 months in jail before trial, so that had done whatever good jail could, and for another there's no evidence I could find of him breaching the conditions of this sentence.
Now CANLII jumps ahead from 2004 to 2008, and to a decision about how well Stu's NEXT conditional sentence order (CSO) is working out. What is the offence that got him this CSO?
So how exactly did Stu try to intimidate the judge? The old horse's head in bed trick? Our sought-after intimidation by fee schedule? His CSO Conditions aren't terribly revealing (no contact with the victim, other court personnel, or any public official except in their normal duties) but perhaps the breaches are. The first breach isn't too revealing (trying to appoint the director of vital statistics as the power of attorney for his (Stu's) name), but the second is paydirt:On April 30, 2007, Stuart Fredrick Leis was convicted of engaging in conduct intending to provoke a state of fear in Judge Bobowski of the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan, in order to impede Judge Bobowski in the performance of his duties contrary to s. 423.1(1) [intimidation of a justice system participant] of the Criminal Code. On the same date, Justice Kyle made a conditional sentence order. Although Justice Kyle ordered that Mr. Leis be imprisoned for a term of 18 months he was satisfied that service of the sentence of imprisonment in the community would not endanger the safety of the community.
[11] On July 10, 2007, Mr. Leis wrote a letter to Ms. Fritz which stated, in part, as follows:
You will recall we also discussed agency. As agent and surety for the legal fiction “name” of STUART FREDRICK LEIS, I quit. Agency has reverted back to the Department of Health and Vital Statistics who created it as evidenced by the Birth Certificate which I delivered to the Queen’s Bench Court and gave you a copy of.
Since I am no longer agent for that “name”, I will have to be paid a fee of $250.00 per hour in silver or gold, with a minimum charge of one hour for any further time spent with you regarding that “name”.
The specific question of the decision in question is whether Stu should serve he rest of his CSO ("imprisonment served in the community") as actual jail time, as a punishment for breaching his conditions. To summarize the decision, the heroic optimism of giving Stu a second CSO in three years didn't work out, and so yes, the rest of the sentence (a little over 7 months) would be served as imprisonment in an actual prison.
The last two decisions on CANLII are a request for bail pending an appeal of the CSO review (denied) and the appeal itself. The bail hearing is, surprisingly, the decision with the most interesting information, because it quotes a transcript of the prosecutor's summary of the intimidation offence:
M
And so it seems that we've finally found the facts here, and they aren't terribly helpful. It seems that the fee schedules were part of a broader set of intimidating behaviours, and in any case it was a guilty plea not an actual trial ruling.[Crown attorney]: ... The circumstances surrounding Count 3 on the Indictment are that for the time period in question as set forth on the Indictment behaviour that took place by Mr. Leis, and I’ll get into that, amounted to such a measure – or reached such a level that it did provoke a state of fear in [E.B.]. The individual named had been involved in the justice system prior and had been before the presiding judge [E.B.] prior to his retirement
And through the process of this court and various appearances Stuart Leis spent some time in custody, he also was sent for an assessment. And after that took place and after[E.B.] heard particular cases, several writings and bills and invoices were sent to [E.B.] at the Court House. Writings appeared in newspaper articles indicating that [E.B.] owed Mr. Leis for damages caused to him. One of the invoices was to the tune of in excess of $2,000,000.
And with these documents came what were entitled agreements that were for all intents and purposes, as [E.B.]saw them, one sided agreements in that they were being thrust and forced upon him. That’s how he viewed them and so does the Crown.
It’s trite to say that [E.B] is a justice system participant as defined in the Code. And on one occasion and in particular it was March the 3rd, 2006, at approximately 5.30 p.m., [E.B.]’s wife was at home when her doorbell rang and she answered it without checking to see who it was, but when she did that the individual seated here was present at the door wanting to speak to [E.B.]. She slammed the door indicating he wasn’t home. When [E.B.] entered into looking into these documents a little more closely he stated at one point that when he got halfway through one of the documents he received he became very deeply concerned about his safety and the safety of his wife, for he felt that this individual was so fixated on the amount of money that he owed or supposedly owed he was – I’m going to use his words, ‘I fear of advocating a warrant of execution upon my life and ordering it be carried out directly’, or acting on it himself. Now, this is the fear that this installed (sic) – instilled in – in [E.B.].[2]
And so another OPCA quest ends far short of the hoped for promised land. Ah well, such is the lot of the OPCA and, too often, those who observe them.
