A former ServiceOntario government worker responsible for vehicle registrations has been found guilty for her part in a revinning scheme involving three stolen vehicles.

During a police investigation, auto body repair technician Eric Johnson was overheard referring to Tonisha Baird, who was a ServiceOntario employee in Brampton, Ont., until she quit in April 2022, as his inside “girl” for processing registration documents for stolen vehicles, according to the Crown’s evidence in the case.

Since its wiretap evidence against Baird was “entirely circumstantial,” as Ontario Superior Court Justice Ranjan K. Agarwal observed, the Crown had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Baird committed a crime. And, on several charges laid against Baird, Agarwal was not convinced she was guilty of all of them.  

However, in three specific instances — regarding the paperwork to register an Audi SUV, a 2019 Range Rover, and a 2021 Range Rover — Justice Agarwal found Baird had conspired with Johnson to traffic in stolen vehicles.

“Auto theft is a serious crime that affects all the people of Ontario,” Agarwal ruled in a decision released Tuesday. “For victims of auto theft, there is stress, anxiety, fear, and financial cost that comes with discovering that their car has been pilfered from their driveway. For the rest of society, there is the latent worry that their car may be next, or worse, they may be the victim of associated crimes like gun violence or home invasions.

“The Crown has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Baird and Johnson played a role in this crime epidemic. Baird used her position of trust as a front-line ServiceOntario worker to allow [unindicted co-conspirator John Tsun] Magan and Johnson to register vehicles that had been stolen and revinned.”

The court decision notes that when Baird was arrested in July 2022, she was driving a stolen black 2021 Audi Q3 SUV.  

“The true VIN of the vehicle was WA1EECF35M1026694 (as shown on the vehicle’s ECM [the Electronic Control Module, which is the vehicle’s infotainment system]). The SUV had been revinned to WA1DECF38L1008345 in three spots: the public VIN, the hidden VIN, and the certification label. The cloned VIN belonged to a salvaged grey 2020 Audi Q3 SUV that had 35,810 miles [or 57,6630 km] on it.

“The SUV that Baird was driving had been stolen from its owner in York Region in August 2021. Baird doesn’t dispute that she was in possession of the SUV, or the SUV was property obtained by crime.”

However, Baird said, it was reasonable to infer that the seller, Jonathan Banchon, had tricked her into buying a stolen car. The Superior Court didn’t find that argument persuasive.

“Baird was an experienced ServiceOntario employee,” the court found. “Baird knew or was wilfully blind to the fact that when Banchon sold her the SUV, he was legally required to give her a UVIP for the SUV.”

A UVIP, or used vehicle information package, can be ordered through ServiceOntario. It contains, among other things, vehicle details, such as the make, model, colour, and VIN of the car, a registration history (for example, the past and present owner of the vehicle, their city of residence, and odometer reading), plus the Retail Sales Tax information and last known status of the vehicle’s condition. ServiceOntario doesn’t keep records of UVIP orders.

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If Baird had seen the UVIP for the vehicle, the judge concluded, she would have asked herself three questions: Why does the paperwork say this is a 2020 SUV when I’m buying a 2021 SUV? Why does the paperwork say the vehicle has more than 35,000 km or miles on it, when the SUV I’m buying has less than 30,000 km? And finally, why does the paperwork say the SUV’s last-known status was ‘unfit’ when I’m buying a fit vehicle?

“Baird didn’t need Banchon to tell her the SUV was stolen or show her the revinning — the vehicle history was enough to put anybody, never mind her, with years of ServiceOntario experience, on their inquiry that the car she was buying wasn’t the same car registered in Ontario under that VIN,” the court ruling states.

Peel Police started to investigate Baird after an unrelated car theft investigation in 2020, when Peel Police discovered a suspect was driving a “revinned” vehicle. “The police discovered that several revinned vehicles had been registered by the same ServiceOntario operator [Baird],” the court decision notes.

Feature image courtesy of iStock.com/i_frontier

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David Gambrill