Conviction, five-year sentence upheld for cop who faked crash reports
TORONTO — A veteran police officer who prepared bogus accident reports in exchange for cash lost his bid on Friday to overturn his conviction and five-year prison term.
In upholding the guilty finding, the Court of Appeal for Ontario rejected arguments from Peel Regional Police Const. Carlton Watson that the trial judge had made errors.
While Watson didn’t claim the verdict was unreasonable, he did argue Superior Court Justice John Sproat had “engaged in impermissible speculation” in finding him guilty in February 2015 of 40 counts of fraud, making false documents, breach of trust and obstruction of justice.
The offences related to nine crash reports Watson prepared in 2010 which led to insurance payouts of more than $1 million. However, court records show, none of the crashes had actually happened.