Tarsem Singh Gill, who pleaded guilty on May 3 to defrauding 77 homebuyers and 30 lenders of $31-million, following a much-delayed court case, had refused to vacate his southeast Vancouver home weeks after the property’s court-ordered sale, according to court documents. So court bailiffs locked him out of the house on Monday.
SOUTH VANCOUVER- An Indo-Canadian property developer who pleaded guilty in May to a multi-million fraud scheme that caused dozens of Lower Mainland families to lose their homes has, in turn, lost his own home, as court bailiffs moved in Monday morning to evict him and his family.
Tarsem Singh Gill, who pleaded guilty on May 3 to defrauding 77 homebuyers and 30 lenders of $31-million, following a much-delayed court case, had refused to vacate his southeast Vancouver home weeks after the property’s court-ordered sale, according to court documents.
Gill’s guilty plea put an end to a record $38.4 million lawyer-fraud case that doubled the client-compensation assessment payments for attorneys in the Law Society of British Columbia.
Gill’s now-disbarred former attorney, Martin Keith Wirick, was expected to be the star witness at Gill’s B.C. supreme court trial that was to have begun Monday. Wirick pleaded guilty in June 2009, was sentenced to seven years, and has already been released on parole, the Province reports.
The two were accused of misappropriating homeowners’ money for their own use instead of paying off mortgages at real estate closings.
Gill was accused of operating the scheme for over a decade; Wirick reportedly was involved only between 1999 and 2002.
Harjit Gill was on the property acting for his son Jassi Gill, who had forced the house sale to get monies that were owed to him.
Harjit Gill told the Province newspaper Tarsem Gill had been given more than a month to vacate the property.
“They figured it was a joke,” said Harjit Gill of the eviction. “He should know better.”
“He deserves everything. Everything that could happen bad, he deserves it,” said Gurmit Jiti Sehra, who told the Province he lost his house in east Vancouver three years ago after falling victim to one of Gill’s scams.
“I know two people, they used to live in a two-acre house in Langley,” Sehra said. “What he did to them, they cannot even buy shoes for their children.”
Sehra is 65 and had planned to retire by now. But because of the scam that cost him his house, he said, he has been forced to go back to work for at least a few more years.
Sehra told the Province he fell victim to Gill after the court case had already started, and Gill was never charged in connection with that particular alleged scam.
Court had ordered the sale of Gill’s house, where his family including wife Surinder and daughter Baljinder has lived for many years following Gill’s guilty pleas in May.
Records show that the property on Ross Street, assessed at $1,128,000 this year, was owned by Gill’s daughter, Baljinder Kaur Gill, until June, when it was sold to two buyers.
The property had previously been owned by Tarsem Gill, and then by his wife, before his daughter Baljinder took ownership, property records show.
The much-delayed court case was drawn out for years as Gill hired and fired multiple lawyers, before entering a guilty plea.
At the time, Gill’s lawyer Jason Mann asked the judge to postpone sentencing until 2014 to accommodate what he called the “personal affairs” of his client.
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