SUDBURY - The man who accessed personal tax information as an employee of the Canada Revenue Agency in Greater Sudbury was sentenced to 30 months in jail.
Christopher Casola, 48, pleaded guilty on Oct. 11 to three charges including breach of trust by a public official, possession of a restricted firearm (a handgun) with readily accessible ammunition, and possession of a non-restricted firearm without a licence.
He was sentenced Dec. 3. He must also submit a DNA sample as part of the sentencing.
In handing down his sentence, Superior Court Justice Dan Cornell said there are a lot of circumstances surrounding the offences that are very concerning.
“Possession of weapons while being a member of a one-per-cent biker gang and accessing personal information, including that of a police officer dedicated to biker enforcement — any one of these alone is enough, but when you put that all together, the inferences are not good, and these are all circumstances that result in much longer sentences,” Cornell said.
Cornell said it would be difficult for Casola to consider himself fortunate, given his circumstances, but he should be.
“It's fortunate this happened when it did before you got any deeper,” Cornell said. “You could have been facing much more serious consequences.”
In October, jury selection for what was anticipated to be a five-week trial ended abruptly when Casola pleaded guilty to three of the 21 charges levied against him. The Crown dropped the remaining charges as a result of the plea. At one point, the charge count was as high as 28.
Casola was arrested in April 2016 following an investigation by Greater Sudbury Police Service's Criminal Investigations Division. They alleged at the time Casola had illegally accessed the private records of six Sudbury residents between November and December of 2014.
That's around the same period when the former Red Devils MC was folded into the Bacchus MC. Police alleged Casola was acting on behalf of the Bacchus MC. That club was later folded into the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.
Casola searched the tax records of Phil Boudreault, a boxer who represented Canada at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Boudreault has frequently been in trouble with the law since then, however, and has been associated with the Hell's Angels MC. The records of Kyle Aulenback, a convicted drug dealer who has been associated with Boudreault in the past, were also accessed, as were the accounts belonging to two police officers.
- Sudbury.com/Laurentian Media