A Canadian man has lost a 16-year legal battle to recover more than CAD 1.2 million that he kept in strange locations around his home.
On December 1, 2009, police went to Marcel Breton’s rural property outside the northwestern Ontario city of Thunder Bay to search for illegal handguns, according to court documents.
There they made an unusual discovery. There was CAD 15,000 worth of banknotes in the underfloor heating ducts in the living room, approximately CAD 32,000 worth of banknotes stored around the garage, and more than CAD 1.2 million in Canadian banknotes in a rubber tub buried in the ground beneath the garage.
In total, the value of the stash in 2009 amounted to US$1.19 million.
Police also found a variety of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy, which they told Canadian media at the time.
Brereton was charged and initially found guilty of various charges, including possession of proceeds of crime. However, at the retrial, he was acquitted, arguing that the search of his property was illegal.
However, the question arose of what to do with the money.
On Monday, Ontario’s Court of Appeal upheld a 2023 ruling that determined the bulk of the funds should be paid to the government.
The appeals court noted that the trial judge, Judge Bruce Fitzpatrick, said: “It is unusual for an ordinary person to have so much money buried in a bathtub under their property.”
The judge also noted that the most common type of banknotes found in the bundle was CAD 20, which is the most common denomination associated with drug trafficking.
Additionally, Brereton did not report his income to the Canada Revenue Agency between 2001 and 2008, the documents state.
Mr Fitzpatrick also did not accept the valid reasons why Mr Brereton had so much cash – that he had won the lottery or at the casino, or that he had earned it from his car repair business.
A trial judge subsequently ordered most of the funds to be turned over to the government, a decision the Court of Appeals upheld.
Sanaa Ahmed, an assistant professor of law at the University of Calgary, said the case was an example of “legalistic pain.”
“When faced with facts like this, courts will often find a way to justify ‘punishing’ the defendant by forfeiting money, even if he or she would have otherwise been acquitted,” she told CNN via email.
“Unfortunately, as a society, we are becoming increasingly comfortable breaking some rules to catch the so-called ‘bad guys,'” Ahmed added. “But we forget that we put these rules in place precisely to avoid subjective and prescriptive judgments by those who hold judicial office.”
Michel Gallant, a law professor at the University of Manitoba, said in this case the burden was on Breton to prove that the money was obtained legally, noting that “cash is the currency of illegal drugs.”
“What are the legitimate sources to back up those barreled and buried dollars? Why bury them? Every day, you’d want at least bank interest,” Gallant said.
But it wasn’t all bad news for the Bretons. The Court of Appeal upheld Fitzpatrick’s earlier ruling that Breton must keep the C$15,000 found inside the house’s vent because the judge could not rule out that the cash was legally obtained. In today’s money, it’s worth just over $10,600.
