Brampton Private School Closed Following Owner’s Conviction

Brampton | Ontario | Latest News |

Published March 8, 2019 at 5:42 pm

The operator of private school Academic Montessori in Brampton, in addition to a summer camp in Mississauga called Wonderful Interactive Summer Experience (WISE), has been convicted in court for fa

The operator of private school Academic Montessori in Brampton, in addition to a summer camp in Mississauga called Wonderful Interactive Summer Experience (WISE), has been convicted in court for failing to pay employees.

Peter David Sinisa Sesek was found to have failed to pay his workers, in addition to having failed to comply with an order to pay issued by a Ministry of Labour employment standards officer under the Employment Standards Act.

The penalty imposed, following an appeal and retrial, ordered Sesek to pay $127,718 as well as an administrative fee of $12,771 for a total of $140,490, as directed by Justice of the Peace Diane M. McAleer in a Mississauga provincial court.

Sesek was fined $28,000 plus a 25-per-cent victim surcharge, the latter of which was required by the Provincial Offences Act and is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

Sesek’s original conviction was on June 6 in 2017, and was for amounts owing to 43 claimants dating from the 2014 operating year, ranging from $700 to $12,000. These amounts included wages, holiday pay, termination pay owed to camp counsellors and Montessori instructors at the time of this first sentence.

A fine of $20,000 and a sentence of 30 days in jail was put into order by Justice of the PEace Hila Weiss, with the businesses ceasing operations before the first trial.

Justice Weiss indicated that Sesek had not made any payments toward the order in four years, from March 2015 to March 2019, and as such was guilty of the offence as charged. She also noted that, as it was a continuing offence, he continued to be in contravention for each day he failed to pay the order.

Sesek was also convicted under the Consumer Protection Act for failure to refund $3,968 owed to parents of children who paid to attend the Montessori school but could not after the school closed, on four charges dated September 22, 2016.

Sesek was fined $1,000 for that offence.

The combined total of wages to be paid, fines, refunds and victim surcharges is over $204,000.

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