Sean Magna appears to be an accomplished actor.
And it is his alleged repeat performances over a recent seven-month period that have landed him behind bars again.
Magna, 36, a sometime resident of the Sud-Ouest borough, awaits a bail hearing at the Montreal courthouse in a case in which he is alleged to have tricked the employees of dozens of cafés and restaurants in the Montreal area while posing as a delivery man.
According to Montreal police, Magna is a suspect in 70 fraud cases in which someone pretended to deliver coffee to eateries and insisted on being paid in cash. If employees asked questions, the fraudster would use his own phone to pretend to call the restaurant’s manager. That is where acting talents came in. The man who carried out the recent frauds pulled off performances so convincing, the employees would pay him on the spot. The fraudster also appeared to have done his research: in many cases he knew the name of the manager of the establishment being targeted.
In September, Montreal police released photos of Magna while seeking the public’s help in identifying the suspect in almost 30 cases reported by restaurants in Plateau Mont-Royal and downtown.
Magna remains detained while he awaits a bail hearing scheduled for Jan. 23.
If the accusations are proved in court, the first three months of Magna’s alleged crime spree occurred while he was out on a conditional release and still serving a seven-year prison term he amassed over the past decade while treating the federal penitentiary system like a revolving door. According to Parole Board of Canada records, what started as an 18-month sentence in March 2007, when Magna was convicted for theft and fraud, ballooned to the seven-year term that expired on Aug. 4, 2017.
He reached his statutory release date on that sentence on Feb. 2, despite having been a considerable headache for Correctional Service Canada for years. Between 2011 and 2016, conditional releases granted to Magna were revoked three times because, as he eventually admitted to the parole board, he dislikes rules and “was tired of complying with Correctional Service Canada’s conditions.”
A written summary of a decision made by the parole board on July 27, 2009, reveals he first violated a conditional release by committing the same type of fraud he is accused of in the current case.
Read the full story over at the Montreal Gazette.
