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Former SISO administrator sentenced

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(Update)
The third manager involved in the collapse of Hamilton’s former Settlement and Integration Services Organization was sentenced to nine months in jail Thursday. As Lisa Hepfner reports, former SISO administrator Nese Burgaz also has to re-pay the money she took.

Her lawyer, Andrew Confente, says the first time he met 46-year-old Nese Burgaz, she told him she wanted to plead guilty and pay back the $160,000: “Ms. Burgaz has paid a small amount, $4,000 toward restitution. Her intention all along is to pay back the funds obtained by her illegally.”

But the judge said restitution alone wasn’t enough to make up for the abuse of trust that contributed to the demise of an important organization for immigrants. Hundreds lost their jobs and suffered financial difficulty. Also, the judge said Burgaz felt no remorse until she was caught. Until then, she used federal money marked for immigrants to enhance her own life, like private school for the kids and a pool in her yard. The judge said, “simply put, that’s greed.”

But, Burgaz did plead guilty and gave a video statement to police at the outset. Unlike her co-accused, former SISO CEO Morteza Jafarpour who last month was sentenced to two years in jail, and former Finance Director Robert Salama, who was sentenced to 18 months. Court heard the managers defrauded the federal government out of millions of dollars, by submitting false documents to the agency’s main source of funding, Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Auditors found that Nese Burgaz and Robert Salama also deposited up to $2,500 extra into their personal bank accounts at every two-week pay period. Confente: “She acknowledges what she did was wrong. She knows she has to spend time in jail for what she did. I would describe her as a very great individual.”

Confente says Burgaz has been recovering from depression and suicidal thoughts. She’s been volunteering with cancer patients to redeem herself, and he expects she’ll continue that work when she gets out of jail, likely in six months.