Sudbury company hopes to move on after $24M fraud

The Sudbury mining supply company at the centre of a $24 millionfraud is trying to move on now that perpetrators are behind bars.

Last week, the final two men who were part of of a scheme to overbillAtlasCopcofor employee benefits and pocketthe extra money were sent to jail.

"The first reaction was OK, time to turn the page,"says Louka Geladi, the president of Atlas Copco Canada.

He says this was a "sensitive" time for his company and its employees.

"Because there were managers of AtlasCopcoinvolved, there are still people working in the company who knew those managers."

Montreal stockbroker Paul Caron, 72, was sentenced last week to six and a half years and ordered to pay back $10 million, while former Sudbury office manager DirkPlate, also 72, received five years in prison, plus an order to re-pay $77,000.

The sentences came at the end of of lengthy jury trial, which sat for 40 days in a Sudbury courtroom this spring.

Leo Caron, Atlas Copco's former human resources manager, was previously sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty.

David Hillier, the former finance manager at the company's Sudbury office, avoided criminal charges by returning the $400,000 he says he stole and agreeing to testify against his co-conspirators.

Geladi saysthe fraud and the publicity surrounding the long trial doesn't seem to have hurt the company's business.

"Of course, we got those questions 'How long? Why didn't you see it?' And those things, but business wise, they know our reputation and the trust was still there," he says.

Geladisays so far none of the $24 millionhas been recovered, but he says the company does have a civil suit against the men involved and last week's sentencing included a forfeiture order giving the court power to seize money and property connected with the crime.