Judge expected to deliver verdict at former Mountie’s foreign interference trial

A B.C. Supreme Court judge is expected to deliver her verdict Wednesday on foreign interference allegations against a former Mountie accused of targeting an alleged fraudster at the behest of the Chinese government.

William Majcher has pleaded not guilty to one count of “engaging in preparatory acts to commit an offence” under Canada’s Security of Information Act.

At trial last month, prosecutors claimed Chinese authorities used the former RCMP officer to prepare a campaign of coercion as an “end run” around Canadian laws preventing them from directly contacting a Vancouver-based millionaire wanted for financial crimes in China.

An ‘offer you can’t refuse’

Justice Martha Devlin’s decision is likely to hinge on her interpretation of a portion of an email Majcher sent to a colleague in April 2017, when he was running the Hong Kong-based asset recovery firm he started after retiring from the RCMP.

The email refers to a “fraudster” who prosecutors contended was clearly Hongwei (Kevin) Sun — a multimillionaire real estate investor who settled in the Lower Mainland after leaving China, where he was wanted for financial crimes involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The fraudster is now a … major real estate mogul in Vancouver and we have located over $100M of assets. The Chinese Police have opened a Task Force and standing by to issue a global arrest warrant,” Majcher wrote.

“I hope to have a copy of the warrant before it is issued so we can impress upon the crook that we hold the keys to his future. I am meeting an associate of the target tomorrow in HK [Hong Kong] to see if he can help negotiate a settlement as the Chinese want to use this as a precedent case to settle economic crimes quietly and expeditiously.”

Crown prosecutor Ryan Carrier said the email was clearly about Sun — bolstering his argument with evidence from the RCMP’s former Chinese liaison officer, who testified that Chinese officials had been frustrated by Canada’s refusal to approach Sun on their behalf.

He claimed the email was proof Majcher was part of a Chinese plan to step outside official channels in order to pressure Sun into complying.

“The plan was — this is what you have to do and these are the consequences if you don’t do it. The plan is to make him some kind of offer that you can’t refuse,” Carrier told the judge at one point.

He claimed Majcher had to have been working with the Chinese, because “Bill Majcher the private citizen is simply not able to guarantee Mr. Sun a passport and no jail time on his own.”

A ‘leap of logic’

Majcher’s lawyer claimed the Crown was asking Devlin to take a “leap of logic” by imputing criminal motives to a narrow reading of two paragraphs plucked from a much larger email.

Ian Donaldson said a reasonable inference from the email is that Majcher “was talking about chasing a fraudster for a bunch of money.”

“That doesn’t read as if it’s a criminal plan … an unlawful plan,” Donaldson said.

“The Crown is suggesting that from a few sentences in a couple of emails you should conclude that there is criminally culpable conduct.”

Donaldson described his client as a man who was prone to hyperbole, writing an informal missive about business plans that were entirely “in the public interest.”

He said the impugned paragraphs were only part of the story.

“One ought not to, in my respectful submission, extract a sentence or two [and] construe those in the most negative fashion possible,” Donaldson told the judge.

“That email, in my respectful submission, is powerful evidence that tends to negate any ulterior criminal intent of any sort.”

Majcher’s trial had originally been set for two weeks, but took only half that time, in part because the Crown made a last-minute decision not to call a key witness.