Almost immediately after receiving house arrest for defrauding a cancer charity of tens of thousands of dollars, Lily Ayelazuno began plotting how to get out of it.<\/p>\n
There was an exception to her conditional sentence \u2014 allowing her out of the house for work. And so, the 31-year-old convicted fraudster created work contracts and pay stubs for jobs that didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
She claimed she was a research assistant at University Health Network, and she produced a contract displaying the signature of a senior vice-president who really did work there. And she said she was working as a bartender at a Joey restaurant, in a bid to have her GPS ankle monitor removed, complete with fake email correspondence with her supposed manager \u2014 again, someone who really did work at the restaurant.<\/p>\n
The ruse was soon uncovered, landing Ayelazuno back in a Toronto courtroom last Wednesday before the same judge who imposed the conditional sentence last year. A very disappointed Ontario Court Justice Hafeez Amarshi made it clear the leniency shown by the court would not continue. The conditional sentence was terminated. Ayelazuno was going to jail.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was impressed by what you told me about your educational and work ambitions and wanting to change your life, but what I\u2019ve realized is that what you say and what you do is inconsistent,\u201d the judge told Ayelazuno.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, in the end, it doesn\u2019t matter how bright and talented you are. It won\u2019t amount to much if you\u2019re fundamentally dishonest, which is the conclusion I\u2019ve arrived at.\u201d<\/p>\n
In sending Ayelazuno to jail for the remainder of her sentence \u2014 21 months \u2014 Amarshi said he was struck by the amount of effort she had put in to mislead everyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019d just put in that much effort and energy into pro-social conduct, given what I know of you, you would have had some really positive outcomes in your life. Instead, you find yourself back in this courtroom being sentenced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ayelazuno was permitted to hug her mother in the public gallery before being taken away by an officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ayelazuno\u2019s scheme quickly unravels after \u2018multiple instances of deceit\u2019<\/p>\n
The conditional sentence was imposed last May after Ayelazuno pleaded guilty to defrauding Ovarian Cancer Canada of over $60,000. A former donor services administrator and executive assistant to the CEO at the organization, Ayelazuno had been accused of making unauthorized purchases with company credit cards over nine months in 2020, and then trying to cover it up by altering bank statements.<\/p>\n
She provided partial restitution to the charity ahead of her sentencing; that, along with her prospects for rehabilitation, contributed to the judge\u2019s decision last year to impose a conditional sentence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A fake University Health Network pay stub provided by Lily Ayelazuno.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ontario Court of Justice exhibit <\/p>\n
A conditional sentence is a term of imprisonment of less than two years served in the community, typically involving a period of house arrest as well as a curfew. If offenders fail to follow their conditions, the judge can send them directly to jail for the rest of their sentence.<\/p>\n
Just one week after her house arrest began in May 2025, Ayelazuno reported the UHN and Joey jobs to her conditional sentence supervisor, Anosha Malek, who demanded proof. Four days later, Ayelazuno faxed over a UHN pay stub from December 2024 and a services agreement confirming her employment. She later sent a second services agreement from UHN, as well as pay stubs from Joey.<\/p>\n
The following month, Ayelazuno applied to the court to have her GPS ankle monitor removed, saying it was undermining her ability to be gainfully employed as she had to take a leave from her part-time job at Joey because \u201cthe uniform does not adequately cover\u201d the device \u2014 a job she claimed in court records was to help pay restitution for her fraud conviction<\/p>\n
She filed with the court email correspondence between herself and a Joey manager, Andrew Jebaili, in which she asks for a short-term leave to \u201chandle some personal and challenging matters that have suddenly come up.\u201d Jebaili responds that he\u2019ll let the HR department know: \u201cIn the meantime, please focus on what you need to take care of.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Crown had concerns about the documents Ayelazuno had filed; Crown attorney Sandra Duffey told Malek in an email that some of the material was \u201cinconsistent and implausible.\u201d The hearing to remove the ankle monitor was put on hold while Toronto police investigated.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An email supposedly sent by Joey manager Andrew Jebaili to Lily Ayelazuno that a judge concluded was \u201cwholly fabricated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ontario Court of Justice exhibit <\/p>\n
Malek also became suspicious in July after Ayelazuno asked to be allowed out of the house on two separate days that month to work at a UHN research lab.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was advised that I would need to contact UHN to verify her employment,\u201d Malek wrote in a report filed with the court. \u201cHowever, she declined, expressing concern that such contact could jeopardize her position and result in her termination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malek called the police. She did not ultimately authorize the house arrest exceptions, but Amarshi found that doesn\u2019t mitigate the seriousness of Ayelazuno\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost upon imposition of the (conditional sentence), Ms. Ayelazuno planned and schemed to undermine the sentence,\u201d Amarshi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear that Ms. Ayelazuno, from the outset, had no intention of abiding by the conditions of the sentence imposed by this court. There are multiple instances of deceit, involving some level of sophistication as well as effort and planning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both UHN service agreements contained the signature of Bradly Wouters, executive vice-president of science and research. But Maggie Mercer, UHN\u2019s director of people and culture, told the police detective it appeared Wouters\u2019 signature had been cut and pasted.<\/p>\n
Ayelazuno had, in fact, worked at UHN, Mercer said, but records showed she had been terminated for cause in July 2024, almost a year before her house arrest was imposed. Mercer concluded that Ayelazuno had \u201cmanipulated\u201d her last pay stub from UHN to make it appear more recent.<\/p>\n
For his part, Wouters told the detective that he would be involved in the hiring of senior research staff and scientists, but not for a position at a more junior level like the one Ayelazuno was claiming to have. The electronic signature on the service agreements was certainly his, Wouters said, but he had no recollection of signing them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI readily concluded that the UHN contracts and UHN pay stubs provided by Ms. Ayelazuno were not authentic,\u201d Amarshi said, noting that the defence also conceded that Ayelazuno had breached her conditional sentence on this point.<\/p>\n
Jebaili, the Joey manager, confirmed the pay stubs Ayelazuno had provided were not issued by Joey. He had worked with Ayelazuno, but it was at a different Joey location around 2020, and he had not seen her since. She had emailed him in May 2025 looking for work, but he never offered her employment. And so there was no way he would have been emailing her in 2025 about taking a leave from her supposed bartender job at Joey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contents of that email were wholly fabricated,\u201d Amarshi said. \u201cThe Crown has established that Ms. Ayelazuno did not work at Joey Restaurant Group in 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The facts of this case call out for one clear outcome\u2019<\/p>\n
Testifying at the hearing for breaching her conditional sentence, Ayelazuno said she was dealing with \u201congoing health concerns,\u201d Amarshi said in his ruling. \u201cShe detailed difficulties she was experiencing living at home with her parents, specifically her father and his reaction to the GPS monitoring device.\u201d<\/p>\n
She testified that she had signed a lease on a new place, obtained actual employment, and is enrolled in the University of Toronto\u2019s school of continuing education.<\/p>\n
Duffey, the Crown attorney, argued for the \u201cfull collapse\u201d of the conditional sentence and sending Ayelazuno to jail for the remainder of her sentence. Defence lawyer Tonya Kent urged the judge to keep the conditional sentence in place with modified conditions, or, alternatively, that her client go to jail for part of the sentence, followed by a resumption of the conditional sentence. Kent highlighted her client\u2019s counselling efforts and her current employment.<\/p>\n
But the judge found Ayelazuno\u2019s prospects for rehabilitation to be \u201cdim,\u201d as she has shown little insight into her actions and poses a risk for reoffending. Amarshi cited case law noting that segments of the population \u201cremain suspicious\u201d that conditional sentences are not imprisonment and that the conditions are not rigorously enforced.<\/p>\n
\u201cI accept that the legitimacy of the conditional sentencing regime is in part dependent on the public\u2019s confidence that a conditional sentence is a credible alternative to jail, and when that order is undermined, serious consequences should follow,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have determined that the facts of this case call out for one clear outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ayelazuno may have thought she had fooled everyone, including the judge, to whom she sent a letter last year as part of her bid to remove the GPS ankle monitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have made meaningful efforts to transform my life, both personally and professionally,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cI view this sentence as an opportunity for growth and accountability, and I have no intention of doing anything to jeopardize it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost immediately after receiving house arrest for defrauding a cancer charity of tens of thousands of dollars, Lily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-406496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}