One of the most notorious cases in the recent history of estates law in Canada has come to its rather gloomy conclusion.

Barry Landen, a trustee of the estate of the late businessman and philanthropist Paul Penna, made off with millions in assets from Penna’s estate. Mr. Penna’s widow and the charities that were to benefit under his will began their prosecution against Mr. Landen in about 2005 and have been pursuing it ever since. On December 20, 2011, Mr. Landen was sentenced to 14 months in prison for contempt of court for refusing to comply with orders to disclose his dealings with the missing assets so that they could potentially be recovered. To date, millions in estate assets have still not been accounted for.

The case gained national exposure when the Globe and Mail ran a Saturday feature called The dark side of Canada’s inheritance system. The article questioned whether there were enough safeguards in place in the civil system to protect estates and the willpower and resources in the criminal system to prosecute frauds.

The Globe and Mail authors pointedly asked whether justice is really served, “when an trustee such as Mr. Landen is not sent to jail for pocketing the money, but rather for contempt of court?”

Now the case seems to have come to its final conclusion. On October 10, 2012, Mr. Landen went back to court to ostensibly comply with the same order that imprisoned him and also required him to explain the whereabouts of the still-missing millions in assets. His evidence was little more satisfactory than before, but the court saw diminishing returns in trying to coax more information out of him. The reasons of the Honourable Justice Greer speak for themselves:

Landen really did not purge his contempt. He left it to Rogers [an accountant] to try to do it for him. He filed no Affidavit, and no letter of apology. He showed absolutely no remorse in the witness box and had a selected memory of events he did not wish to discuss, such as all the missing shares and the operation of Jakmin.

The question then is, “Would it serve the public’s interest to sentence him to a further 6 months in prison?” I have reluctantly concluded that it would not. He is living alone in a friend’s house and is said to be in receipt of social assistance. His life has become a narrow existence in comparison to the salad days of living in Forest Hill, attending the Leaf’s games, and driving luxury cars, all on other people’s money.

The matter has now come to an end. Landen is no longer beholden to the Court and the Contempt is no longer an issue. I am not ordering that he be returned to prison.

There is no question that the end of this story is disappointing. The charities that were to benefit from Paul Penna’s generosity will go without. We can only hope that the exposure that this case received in the media will encourage trustees, beneficiaries, financial institutions, and especially Canadians planning for the care of their estate to be more vigilant in the future.