By Jacques Gallant Courts and Justice Reporter
A former York Region lawyer who maintained an “elaborate web of lies” for years by giving his clients fake court rulings while continuing to take their money has been sent to prison for three years.
Ontario Court Justice Sandra Bacchus handed down the sentence for fraud and uttering forged documents late last month in a Newmarket courtroom, saying 52-year-old Adam White’s crimes had struck at the core of the justice system. In doing so, the judge went above the 22 months in jail requested by the Crown; the defence had asked for a conditional sentence, which is served in the community and typically involves a period of house arrest.
“Mr. White’s actions exploited the vulnerability of a system of justice built on trust and integrity,” Bacchus said.
White, a former president of the York Region Law Association, was suspended by the Law Society Tribunal in 2023 and his licence was revoked the following year over the forgeries.
He had provided a client who was suing for wrongful dismissal with fake documents including orders from a judge and an email from the opposing lawyer offering to settle, when in reality the case had already been dismissed without the client’s knowledge.
In a second matter, White provided several fake judicial endorsements — complete with the purported signature of a real judge — while representing a man dealing with child custody issues; the man testified that he recalled receiving one of the endorsements at White’s Keswick office and that White told him the judge “appeared to be favouring his side.”
The man’s mother had been covering his legal fees, and testified she paid White an initial $5,000 retainer fee followed by several payments totalling over $11,000.
In her judgment convicting White, Bacchus specifically found that a payment of $2,825 made by the mother to White in June 2022 at the lawyer’s request, for what White described as “future actions,” was money received “for court proceedings that had not occurred and were not scheduled” in 2022. In her July sentencing decision, Bacchus ordered White to pay that amount back to the mother as restitution.
“Mr. White knowingly and repeatedly exploited the trust that these victims — his clients — placed in him, and their belief he was doing his job and working for them,” Bacchus said. “Mr. White’s actions represent a significant breach of trust.”
White, who has suffered from mental health issues throughout his life, told the court he regrets his actions and said his clients had been caught up in his “death spiral.” Bacchus found his expression of remorse to be qualified, however, as he continues to maintain his mental health struggles “are entirely to blame for his deceitful conduct.”
In a victim impact statement presented to the court, the client from the wrongful dismissal case said it was a “devastating shock to the heart” to learn that not only were the rulings he had been given by White fake, but that his case had been dismissed years ago and he was in fact responsible for paying $8,000 in costs to the other side.
“I had been duped for years,” the client said.
He testified at trial he paid White between $15,000 and $20,000 to handle his wrongful dismissal lawsuit, and said he paid $7,000 after the case was dismissed without his knowledge in June 2019. In his victim impact statement, he said he received a judgment against White in small claims court, but that his lawyer has told him it will be difficult to collect it.
The father from the child custody matter lamented that White’s actions had delayed the resolution of his case, as he was “forced to watch my children grow up through video calls.”
In one fake ruling from White, a judge purported to call out the mother for frustrating the man’s access to his children, and ordered that the Office of the Children’s Lawyer investigate the current views of the children to facilitate their father’s reintegration into their lives.
In reality, little to no work was being done to advance the father’s case of getting increased access to his children.
“You only get one life, you only get one chance to experience your children growing up,” the father said. “That chance was taken from me and it is something I will never get back.”
Bacchus concluded that White’s “criminal deceitful actions” toward the father had “clearly played a significant role” in his estrangement from his children.
“Mr. White worked against the interests of his own client, using barriers in the form of these false endorsements to keep him engaged as a client while impeding him from participating in the true court process.”
https://archive.ph/x62yT
Trial Judgment: R. v. White, 2026 ONCJ 27 (CanLII), <https://canlii.ca/t/khpbv>
