David Sidoo of Vancouver leaves following his federal court hearing in a nationwide college admissions cheating scheme in Boston on March 15, 2019.The Canadian Press
A former federal Liberal cabinet minister is working to ensure his friend, businessman David Sidoo, can serve a 90-day fraud sentence in the U.S. college admissions scandal in Canada, arguing that forcing Mr. Sidoo into a U.S. prison, as planned, would put him at undue risk of COVID-19.
Herb Dhaliwal, whose posts under former prime minister Jean Chrétien included revenue and natural resources, said Mr. Sidoo is prepared to pay the price for his conduct, but his safety is at risk given the intense outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States.
“We’re hoping that before he has to go down there, both the Canadian and the U.S. government can agree to have him serve the 90 days here in Canada,” Mr. Dhaliwal said in an interview.
“If I was minister, to me, this would make very good common sense, and I could justify it.”
Mr. Dhaliwal said Mr. Sidoo had “absolutely” asked for his help. “He would prefer to spend the 90 days here in Canada. That’s his preference, to avoid getting COVID and passing it on to his family.”
He added, “Any of us, put in the same situation, would prefer to spend those 90 days here because of the lower risk of getting COVID.”
Mr. Sidoo’s lawyer acknowledged COVID-19, but said his client is prepared to go to jail, as scheduled. “The COVID-19 crisis has created monumental and unprecedented challenges for the entire U.S. criminal justice system,” Martin G. Weinberg said in a statement.
“Mr. Sidoo has, however, been sentenced to serve a 90-day term of imprisonment in the United States starting Sept. 23 and absent a further court order will fully comply with the court’s order.”
Mr. Dhaliwal said he has been thinking of the case of 72-year-old Canadian James Hill, who died in hospital in Virginia this month after he was held for nearly three months in a U.S. immigration detention centre that had a major COVID-19 outbreak. The former physician in Louisiana was waiting to be deported to Canada after serving a 12-year sentence for writing OxyContin prescriptions without seeing patients.
Sixty-one-year-old Mr. Sidoo, who once played professional football for the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the B.C. Lions, was sentenced last month to three months in a U.S. prison for hiring someone to take a college admissions test in place of his two sons.
Upon sentence by a Boston federal court judge, Mr. Sidoo said he made no excuses, broke the law, pleaded guilty and was prepared to pay for his actions.
The former chief executive officer of mining company Advantage Lithium Corp. paid Rick Singer, an admissions consultant at the centre of the scam, $200,000 to have someone pose as his sons, using a fake ID, to secure higher scores on the entrance exams, according to prosecutors.
Mr. Dhaliwal said Mr. Sidoo’s situation has to be assessed in a large context. “Mr. Sidoo has been contributing to his community for the last 25, 30 years [and] involved in various projects, supporting good causes. He obviously made a mistake. People do make mistakes. I think that we need to, first of all, make sure the punishment isn’t way beyond [the crime]. "
Mr. Sidoo’s Order of B.C. has been revoked and his name has been removed from the field at the University of British Columbia’s Thunderbird Stadium.
Mr. Dhaliwal said that if Mr. Sidoo gets sick in the United States, it would be far beyond what the imposed punishment entails.
Mr. Dhaliwal said he has spoken to Mr. Weinberg, but is not working with him on his outreach. Instead he and others he declined to name are seeking a Canadian government commitment that could be presented to the U.S. judge in the case.
He said he has spoken to officials in the office of federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, and to Vancouver-area MP Joyce Murray, the Minister of Digital Government and Mr. Sidoo’s MP, and that he understands that various individuals are reviewing the matter.
Mary-Liz Power, press secretary for Mr. Blair, said in a statement that the privacy act prevents federal government officials from discussing the specifics of an offender’s case, but international transfer cases are processed and considered via the International Transfer of Offenders Act.
Asked about the issue of Mr. Sidoo, Ms. Murray’s office responded with a statement that said the member is aware of the situation, but the privacy act prevents comment on the specifics of the case, and questions should be referred to the office of the public safety minister as he handles such files.
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