Crown drops fraud-related charges against Hammonds Plains man
A Hammonds Plains man no longer faces fraud-related charges in relation to three transactions in 2021 involving a personal watercraft and two motor vehicles.
RCMP announced in March 2022 that Michael Evan Rizzato, 37, had been charged with three counts each of fraud over $5,000 and possession of property obtained by crime and two counts of uttering forged documents.
Rizzato had elected to be tried in Nova Scotia Supreme Court by a judge alone. A preliminary inquiry was set for Thursday in Halifax provincial court, but Crown attorney Ben Hoskins announced he was withdrawing the charges.
“Behind the scenes and out of court, the parties involved are in the process of resolving this,” Hoskins told Judge Christine Driscoll.
“There was a contractual civil component to this that has been dealt with. … The Crown is offering no evidence.”
Defence lawyer David Iannetti of North Sydney, who phoned into the courtroom on behalf of Rizzato, thanked Hoskins at the end of the proceeding.
The offences were allegedly committed between January 2021 and August 2021 and involved three complainants.
Police received a fraud complaint July 6, 2021, about the purchase of a watercraft. The victim allegedly made a payment of $7,000 to the seller, a Hammonds Plains man, but never received the watercraft.
On Aug. 12, 2021, police received a second complaint, this time in relation to the purchase and sale of vehicles. Police learned the same Hammonds Plains received a payment of more than $35,000 for the purchase of a vehicle that he never delivered and took possession of another vehicle related to the same transaction and didn’t pay the owner.
Through their investigation, police said they learned that between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, the man allegedly defrauded victims of more than $60,000 in relation to vehicle purchases and sales.
Rizzato, formerly of New Waterford, received an 18-month conditional sentence and a year’s probation in October 2017 after pleading guilty to 10 charges of fraud, three of forgery and one of uttering forged documents.
Those offences were committed between December 2013 and August 2014 and involved a former employer, a furniture store in Cape Breton.
Rizzato admitted he sold merchandise but failed to turn in the money and falsified invoices. He had paid $40,000 in restitution to his former employer by the time he was sentenced.
