COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO

Page: 59
Pribble stole the funds by closing client accounts and diverting the monies to himself. He
then disappeared. The money he misappropriated was never recovered.
[129] Hryniak gave evidence that he first became aware that the funds had been taken in
May 2002. However, he put forward no reliable evidence that a theft had ever occurred
or that he made any serious attempts to recover the U.S.$10.2 million. He did not file a
police report, he did not ask for Peebles‟ help to trace the theft, and he did not make any
efforts himself to recover the funds from the bank. The only two pieces of evidence he
filed on the motion to support his account were a self-serving letter he sent to the Canada
Revenue Agency and a perfunctory fax he sent to a person he claimed was an FBI agent
in Las Vegas some 15 months after the supposed theft.
(iv)
The motion judge’s findings
[130] The motion judge accepted that the New Savings Bank was not a fictitious entity.
However, he was skeptical of the “test trade”. He questioned why Aro Motors would not
have sold the bonds for a profit itself, instead of allowing Hryniak to do so.
[131] The motion judge rejected the rest of Hryniak‟s various explanations. He did not
believe that there had been a legitimate trading program or that the loss of the Mauldin
group‟s investment was due to Pribble‟s misappropriation. He noted that Hryniak made
no effort to recover the money. He concluded that Hryniak accepted the Mauldin group‟s
money fully intending to use it for his own benefit.