Ontario can keep $32K in cash seized from man who appears to have used AI in his defence

A man who claimed $32,000 police found at his home was casino winnings, after he was allegedly spotted in the passenger seat of a car that killed a pedestrian in downtown Toronto in April 2022, has lost his bid to get the cash back. And the fact that Nosakhare Ohenhen appears to have used artificial intelligence in his legal fight against forfeiture likely didn’t help his case in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice. “Mr. Ohenhen submitted a statement of legal argument to the court in support of his arguments. In those documents, he referred to at least two non-existent or fake precedent court cases, one ostensibly from the Court of Appeal for Ontario and another ostensibly from the British Columbia Court of Appeal. In reviewing his materials after argument, I tried to access these cases and was unable to find them,” Justice Lisa Brownstone wrote in a recent decision. When the judge asked Ohenhen to provide her with the cases, he “responded with a ‘clarification,’ providing different citations to different cases.” Brownstone asked for an explanation as to where the original citations came from, and whether they were generated by artificial intelligence. “I have received no response to that query,” said the judge. “While Mr. Ohenhen is not a lawyer with articulated professional responsibilities to the court, every person who submits authorities to the court has an obligation to ensure that those authorities exist…. Putting fictitious citations before the court misleads the court. It is unacceptable. Whether the cases are put forward by a lawyer or self-represented party, the adverse effect on the administration of justice is the same.” Brownstone said she didn’t attach “any consequences to this conduct in this case,” but if Ohenhen does it again, he should “expect” some. “Other self-represented litigants should be aware that serious consequences from such conduct may well flow.” The Attorney General of Ontario applied to the court to keep the cash police seized on April 22, 2022, from Ohenhen’s home, arguing it was proceeds of crime. The search came about after a hit and run 10 days earlier killed a 30-year-old woman near Spadina Avenue and King Street West. “After the accident, the car entered the underground parking garage at 295 Dufferin Street Toronto, where Mr. Ohenhen lived. Mr. Ohenhen came out of the car and handed something that appeared to be a set of keys to the driver,” Brownstone said. “The two then sat in another car, which was registered in Mr. Ohenhen’s name.” According to the Toronto Police Service, Ohenhen “provided the other person, the driver, with access to his car to enable the driver to escape after the hit-and-run.” Investigators arrested the driver the next day “for failure to stop at the scene of an accident that caused death, dangerous driving causing death, obstruction and public mischief,” Brownstone said. They also arrested Ohenhen as a result of the hit and run and searched his home “where they found six cellular phones and $32,000 in cash, in $100 bills. There were three bundles that total $30,000 bound with elastics in the safe, and $2,000 in two bundles on a table.” Ohenhen was charged with failure to stop at the scene after an accident resulting in death, obstructing a peace officer, public mischief, and being an accessory after the fact to commit an indictable offence, said the judge, noting those charges are pending. According to Ontario’s Attorney General, “Ohenhen has an extensive criminal history involving convictions for possession for the purpose of trafficking, possession of schedule 1 substances, assault, assault with intent to resist arrest, failure to comply with a recognizance, possession of prohibited or restricted firearms, assault causing bodily harm, robbery, and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.” The AG argued that, “on a balance of probabilities, the currency at issue here … was likely acquired as a result of, and used in the commission of, the unlawful activity of trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking, and possession of the proceeds of crime.” But “Ohenhen states that the money comes from casino winnings and from his business.” However, according to the judge, “the records provided do not in any way support Mr. Ohenhen’s statements that the cash was from his business or casino winnings. The records show that his business income, like his casino winnings, was received electronically, not in cash.” Brownstone found “there is no credible and reasonable answer for the suspicious circumstances in which the money was found.” The judge was “satisfied that the Attorney General has established on a balance of probabilities that the funds were proceeds of and an instrument of unlawful activity. There has been no ‘credible and reasonable’ answer to the suspicious circumstances outlined above, that is, that the significant amount of funds was in 100-dollar bills, bundled together, in cash in Mr. Ohenhen’s home, not in a bank.” According to court documents, police arrested Ohenhen on Aug. 21, 2008, in the Parkdale area of Toronto after they stopped his dark green Jaguar. “He was charged with seventeen offences: assault police, resist lawful arrest, eleven charges in relation to illegal possession of a loaded restricted firearm and breach of prior prohibition orders, two counts of possession of cocaine and one of marijuana for the purposes of trafficking, and possession of proceeds of crime.” Ohenhen was sentenced to nine years in prison. But he successfully appealed that conviction after serving nearly five years in prison, and a judge acquitted him in a new trial. In September 2016, Justice Michael Quigley found that Ohenhen had been arbitrarily detained, unreasonably searched, and that his constitutional right to retain and instruct a lawyer without delay “was totally and shockingly ignored by the police.”

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