A man found guilty of setting up a maple syrup heist in Quebec has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

 

 Richard Vallieres has also been fined $9.4 million – and if he can’t pay the fine, he will have to spend an additional six years in prison.

 

 In 2012, 2,700 tonnes of Quebec maple syrup valued at $18 million was taken from a warehouse belonging to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers.

 

 Vallières was found guilty of theft, fraud and possession of maple syrup on Nov. 12.

 

 His father Raymond Vallières was found guilty of possession for the purpose of trafficking, and Étienne St-Pierre was found guilty of fraud and trafficking. They each received a sentence of two years less a day to serve in the community, as well as a three-year probation, and both are also required to pay fines lest they serve more time.

 

 The three were sentenced in a Trois-Rivières courthouse Friday.

A total of 26 people were accused of being involved in the robbery.

 

 The case made international headlines after the sweet stuff was reported missing following a routine inventory check at a warehouse in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Que.

An investigation was launched after the barrels of syrup were found to have been drained and replaced with water.

Officers from the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement helped Quebec police in the investigation.

 

 Richard Vallieres is appealing his conviction.

 

 With a report from The Canadian Press </s> A Canadian man who led the 2012 heist of millions of dollars worth of maple syrup received an eight-year prison sentence and multi-million dollar fine on Friday.

Richard Vallières was fined $9.4 million, and will have to serve six additional years in prison if he does not pay it, for the theft of $18.7 million worth of maple syrup, the CBC reports . The 2012 theft involved taking 3,000 tons of maple syrup from a warehouse that belonged to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, which regulates the syrup trade.

Officials realized the maple syrup was missing in July 2012 when they found dozens of barrels filled with water instead of syrup. Twenty-six people were arrested in an investigation into the missing syrup.

Vallières was found guilty of theft, fraud and trafficking stolen goods. His father, Raymond, and syrup reseller Etienne St-Pierre, have also been found guilty for taking part in the heist. The three men will appeal their convictions, according to the CBC. </s> Three men convicted in connection with the theft of $18 million worth of maple syrup in Quebec were sentenced on Friday to between two and eight years.

Superior Court Justice Raymond Pronovost sentenced Richard Vallieres to eight years in prison, confiscated $606,500 from him and fined him another $9.4 million.

Vallieres, who was convicted of theft, fraud and receiving stolen goods, will have to pay back the money over a 10-year period or risk having his sentence increased by six years.

The other two men, Raymond Vallieres and Etienne St-Pierre, were each sentenced to jail terms of two years minus one day, to be served in the community, as well as three years probation.

Raymond Vallieres will be required to pay $9,840 within one year, or go to jail for six months, while St-Pierre must pay $1.3 million over 15 years or be imprisoned for five years.

A fourth man charged in the case, Jean Lord, was acquitted.

The sentencing proceedings took place in a courtroom in Trois-Rivieres, Que., 140 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

Jurors found the three men guilty last November in connection with the theft of 2,700 tons of syrup worth $18 million from a warehouse in Quebec between August 2011 and July 2012.

The case made international headlines after the sweet stuff was reported missing following a routine inventory check at a warehouse in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Que.

An investigation was launched after the barrels of syrup were found to have been drained and replaced with water.

Officers from the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement helped Quebec police in the investigation. </s> MONTREAL – Three men convicted in connection with the theft of $18 million worth of maple syrup in Quebec were sentenced on Friday to between two and eight years.

Superior Court Justice Raymond Pronovost sentenced Richard Vallieres to eight years in prison, confiscated $606,500 from him and fined him another $9.4 million.

Vallieres, who was convicted of theft, fraud and receiving stolen goods, will have to pay back the money over a 10-year period or risk having his sentence increased by six years.

The other two men, Raymond Vallieres and Etienne St-Pierre, were each sentenced to jail terms of two years minus one day, to be served in the community, as well as three years probation.

Raymond Vallieres will be required to pay $9,840 within one year, or go to jail for six months, while St-Pierre must pay $1.3 million over 15 years or be imprisoned for five years.

A fourth man charged in the case, Jean Lord, was acquitted. </s> A man described as one of the ringleaders in the 2012 theft of $18.7 million worth of maple syrup has been sentenced to eight years in prison, but that term could be extended if he can't pay his multimillion-dollar fine.

On Friday, a Trois-Rivières, Que., judge handed Richard Vallières his eight-year sentence and fined him nearly $9.4 million.

If Vallières does not pay the fine, he will have to spend an additional six years behind bars.

The elaborate maple syrup robbery involved 3,000 tonnes of syrup from a warehouse belonging to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers — the regulatory body that controls and manages the syrup trade.

The heist was discovered when a routine inventory check in July 2012 turned up an empty barrel that was supposed to be full of syrup. Officials with the federation quickly realized that dozens of its barrels contained not syrup, but water.

The resulting investigation by Quebec provincial police led to the arrests of 26 people.

Vallières was found guilty of theft, fraud and trafficking stolen goods. During his trial in Quebec Superior Court, he said that he had filled the barrels with water. His lawyer argued he had been coerced to fill the barrels with water by a man who carried a gun.

But witnesses called by the Crown painted him as one of the ringleaders of the heist.

Vallières's co-accused, his father Raymond, and a New Brunswick-based syrup reseller, Etienne St-Pierre, have also been found guilty for roles in the robbery.

All three men are appealing their convictions. </s> Three men convicted in connection with the theft of $18 million worth of maple syrup in Quebec were sentenced on Friday to between two and eight years. </s> NEW YORK (AP) — Martin Shrkeli, the smirking “Pharma Bro” vilified for jacking up the price of a lifesaving drug, was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for defrauding investors in two failed hedge funds.

The self-promoting pharmaceutical executive notorious for trolling critics online was convicted in a securities fraud case last year unconnected to the price increase dispute.

Shkreli, his cocky persona nowhere to be found, cried as he told U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto he made many mistakes and apologized to investors.

“I want the people who came here today to support me to understand one thing, the only person to blame for me being here today is me,” he said. “I took down Martin Shkreli.”

He said that he hopes to make amends and learn from his mistakes and apologized to his investors.

“I am terribly sorry I lost your trust,” he said. “You deserve far better.”

Prosecutors argued that the 34-year-old was a master manipulator who conned wealthy investors and deserved 15 years in prison. His lawyers said he was a misunderstood eccentric who used unconventional means to make those same investors even wealthier, and deserved 18 months or less in prison.

The judge insisted that the punishment was not about Shkreli’s online antics or raising the cost of the drug.

“This case is not about Mr. Shkreli’s self-cultivated public persona … nor his controversial statements about politics or culture,” the judge said, calling his crimes serious.

He was also fined $75,000 and received credit for the roughly six months he has been in prison.

The judge ruled earlier this week that Shkreli would have to forfeit more than $7.3 million in a brokerage account and personal assets including his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album that he boasted he bought for $2 million. The judge said the property would not be seized until Shkreli had a chance to appeal.

Attorney Benjamin Brafman told Matsumoto Friday that he sometimes wants to hug Shkreli and sometimes wants to punch him in the face , but he said his outspokenness shouldn’t be held against him.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said Shkreli deserved the stiffer sentence not because he is “the most hated man in America,” but because he is a criminal convicted of serious fraud. She said the judge had to consider his history and said he has “no respect whatsoever” for the law, or the court proceedings.

“I also want to make clear that Mr. Shkreli is not a child,” Kasulis said. “He’s not a teenager who just needs some mentoring. He is a man who needs to take responsibility for his actions.”

Unapologetic from the beginning, when he was roundly publicly criticized for defending the 5,000 percent price increase of Daraprim, a previously cheap drug used to treat HIV, Shkreli seemed to drift through his criminal case as if it was one big joke.

After his arrest in December 2015, he taunted prosecutors, got kicked off of Twitter for harassing a female journalist, heckled Clinton from the sidewalk outside her daughter’s home, gave speeches with the conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and spent countless hours livestreaming himself in his apartment.

He was tight-lipped when faced with a barrage of questions about the price hike from members of Congress a couple of months later, citing his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. After the hearing, he tweeted that the lawmakers were “imbeciles.”

Shkreli insisted he was being persecuted by prosecutors for being outspoken and confidently predicted after his conviction that he was unlikely to be sentenced to jail.

Things abruptly changed, though, last fall after he jokingly offered his online followers a $5,000 bounty to anyone who could get a lock of Hillary Clinton’s hair. The judge revoked his bail and threw him in jail, a decision that she defended Friday.

That didn’t tame Shkreli completely. He corresponded with journalists, ridiculing the personal appearance of one female reporter who asked him for an interview.

Before sentencing him, the judge said that it was up to Congress to fix the issue of the HIV price-hike. And she spoke about how his family and friends “state, almost universally, that he is kind and misunderstood” and willing to help others in need.

She said it was clear he is a “tremendously gifted individual who has the capacity for kindness.”

She quoted from letters talking about generous acts like counseling a rape victim, teaching inmates math and chess, and funding family members.

The defense had asked the judge to consider the letters in its case for leniency, including professionals he worked with who vouched for his credentials as a self-made contributor to pharmaceutical advances.

Other testimonials were as quirky as the defendant himself. One woman described how she became an avid follower of Shkreli’s social media commentary about science, the pharmaceutical industry, but mostly, about himself. She suggested that those who were annoyed by it were missing the point.

“I really appreciate the social media output, which I see on par with some form of performance art,” she wrote.

Another supporter said Shkreli’s soft side was demonstrated when he adopted a cat from a shelter — named Trashy — that became a fixture on his livestreams. Another letter was from a man who said he met Shkreli while driving a cab and expressed his appreciation at how he ended up giving him an internship at one of his drug companies.

In court filings, prosecutors argued that Shkreli’s remorse about misleading his investors was not to be believed.

“At its core, this case is about Shkreli’s deception of people who trusted him,” they wrote. </s> A Guatemalan court sentenced former vice president Roxana Baldetti to 15 years and six months in prison Tuesday after finding her guilty of fraud in the awarding of a multi-million dollar government contract to decontaminate a lake near the capital.

Baldetti led a "criminal network" that sought to defraud the state, Judge Pablo Xitumul ruled in finding her guilty of conspiracy, influence peddling and fraud at the end of a four month trial.

Among the nine convicted with Baldetti was her brother Mario, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his involvement in steering the contract to a company owned by an Argentine-Israeli businessman, Hugo Roitman, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

The others involved were former government officials.

The project came to light in 2016 after environmentalists charged that the chemical formula sold was a mixture of salt and water.

Baldetti, who faces charges in three other corruption cases, resigned as vice president in May 2015 after being accused in a separate fraudulent scheme involving Guatemalan customs. </s> Under a revision of the charges, he pleaded guilty to two counts: conspiracy to defraud the federal government and violating the Clean Air Act. A third charge of aiding and abetting wire fraud was rolled into the conspiracy charge.

Mr. Schmidt admitted conspiring with other Volkswagen employees to mislead and defraud the United States in 2015 by failing to disclose that thousands of diesel cars were rigged to evade detection of excess emissions levels. He also admitted filing fraudulent emissions reports to regulators.

Mr. Schmidt faces maximum penalties of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the conspiracy charge, and two years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the environmental charge. He is to be sentenced on Dec. 6.

There was no discussion at the hearing of his potential role as a witness in other federal cases.

Volkswagen has already pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to violate the Clean Air Act, customs violations and obstruction of justice.

The company agreed to pay $4.3 billion in civil and criminal penalties in the case brought by the Justice Department. The penalties were part of $22 billion in settlements and fines that Volkswagen is paying in connection with the cheating scandal and the sale of vehicles that emit harmful levels of pollution.

Mr. Schmidt was a key player in Volkswagen’s efforts to deceive regulators in the United States about the company’s compliance with federal emissions rules. He acted as a liaison to federal and California regulators during a period when, according to the authorities, Volkswagen was engaged in an orchestrated attempt to conceal the emissions fraud.

Mr. Schmidt reported to Heinz-Jakob Neusser, the former head of engine development at Volkswagen, who is among eight Volkswagen executives to be charged in the United States. Mr. Neusser reported to the Volkswagen management board.

One of the executives charged, James Robert Liang, has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and violating the Clean Air Act, and is awaiting sentencing.

Last month, Zaccheo Pamio, an Italian who worked for Volkswagen’s Audi luxury division, was arrested by German authorities after being indicted here.

The other executives charged in the United States are Germans residing in Germany, which does not extradite its citizens, making it unlikely they will face prosecution in an American court.
Richard Vallières, convicted of stealing 3,000 tonnes of maple syrup from a Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers warehouse in 2012, is sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $9.4 million, adjustable to fourteen years on non-payment of the fine.