No word if Rita Grewal will be extradited.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: A lawyer working in Mississauga, Canada has fled to India with $3.5 million, funds she allegedly received from clients who tried to pay off their mortgages.
Real estate lawyer Rita Grewal abandoned her office, her home and her clients in July, allegedly fleeing to India as a millionaire, according to the Law Society of Upper Canada, reported the Toronto Star. She has not been heard from since. She was the sole practitioner for RG Barrister & Solicitor Professional Corporation, a business she ran between February and July this year.
The local law society has suspended her license early last month, claiming it had reasonable grounds to believe she was involved in a “dishonest and fraudulent scheme” to swindle mortgage funds from her clients.
In the tribunal’s ruling, chairman David Wright wrote that the evidence showed Grewal “may well have had a plan to steal clients’ money and then leave the country.”
Since her disappearance, the law society has received 11 complaints from clients who claim they gave Grewal money to pay out existing mortgages, but she never did, the Star reported.
“Despite the fact that over $3.5 million of clients’ money is missing, the bank froze the lawyer’s trust account with less than $100,000 remaining in it,” Wright’s ruling said.
Activity on Grewal’s credit card suggests she is now in India, the ruling said.
The law society has no power to extradite Grewal, but it has referred the case to police, society spokesman Roy Thomas said. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Peel Regional Police both said they could not confirm or deny if Grewal was the subject of an investigation.
According to the report, Grewal, who had previously worked as a lawyer in India, moved to Canada in 2005. Three years later, she took up a job as a legal assistant at Carranza LLP, Toronto’s largest ethnic personal injury law firm. She was called to the bar in Ontario in 2011 and then became a full-time lawyer at Carranza, former colleague and fellow lawyer Moira Gracey told the Star.
While Grewal was employed at Carranza, her husband also worked for the firm as a file clerk, but he moved back to India after the couple separated last year, Gracey said. The break-up had been tough on Grewal and in February she said she was leaving Carranza for personal reasons.
Grewal had also served as a board member for Toronto’s South Asian Women’s Centre before suddenly resigning near the end of last year, the centre’s executive director Kripa Sekhar said.
1 Comment
This is unfortunate for the land owners who entrusted their money with her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZVhSG_PtS4