A Novel Defence

The devil, they say, is in the details, but here in Ontario, the devil apparently is in the Ontario government.

Outside of this province, I'm not certain how well known the tale of bureaucrat Sanjay Madan is, so here is a quick summary:

Madan was the $176,608-a-year IT boss on the computer application for Support for Families, which gave parents $200 per child under age 12, and $250 per child and youth under 21 with special needs for educational expenses.

In Ontario Superior Court filings, the province alleges that “some or all of” Madan, his spouse, Shalini Madan, their two adult sons, Chinmaya and Ujjawal, and associate, Vidhan Singh, funneled millions in such payments to thousands of BMO, TD, RBC, Tangerine, and ICICI bank accounts last spring.

Madan's wife and two sons, no longer employed by the government, are currently engaged in separate lawsuits against the Ontario government, denying any knowledge of Madan's activities, despite the fact that he used his sons' bank accounts to funnel some of the ill-gotten gains. 

Moreover, in a novel defence, Madan is blaming the victim for all of this unwarranted fuss. In his own

January testimony in civil court [he said] that he “thought there may be an opportunity to take the funds out … it looked like easy money for me,” so he “relaxed” some security provisions to allow more payments to be made into the same bank accounts.

“The (government) knew, or ought to have known, that unscrupulous individuals, including potentially its own employees, might try to exploit weaknesses in its security measures to take money, and having anticipated such threats, ought to have taken steps to prevent them or reduce any losses arising from them,” his statement says.

“By failing to do so, the (province) has failed to mitigate its loss and is largely the author of its own misfortune,” it continues.

Madan is additionally implicated in a computer contract kickback scheme, where he allegedly received secret commissions in awarding the contracts to bidders.  The unrepentant Sanjay's response?

“The (government) not only suffered no loss arising from the alleged “kickback scheme,” but in fact saved money by selecting the highest score bidder in an open bidding contest,”... 

One of the definitions of chutzpah is shameless audacity. In addition to the many millions he is alleged to have pilfered, it is obvious that Sanjay Madan has vast reserves of it.