Article content continued

He is also charged with fraud over $5,000, false pretences over $5,000 and possession of the proceeds of crime and is to appear in a Toronto court on Dec. 28.

Lodged between laws that prohibit document forgery and “dining and dashing,” Section 365 is a distant descendant of Medieval English laws that sentenced accused witches to burn at the stake.

In 1735, long after most Britons had stopped believing in sorcery, King George II amended the law to combat potential fraudsters. More than a century later, Canadian legal framers saw fit to put it in the inaugural 1892 edition of the Criminal Code of Canada.

Although Sec. 365 is often cited as the textbook example of an archaic law — particularly when other outdated sections such as anti-dueling laws were weeded out in 1987 — it is still dusted off every few years.

In 2010, Brampton’s Yogendra Pathak, 44, was charged under Section 365 for taking money for witchcraft-related services at his home.

In 2009, Toronto Police charged Vishwantee Persaud with witchcraft for bilking a grieving Toronto lawyer out of $27,000 by alleging that she was possessed by the spirit of his dead sister.

“She claimed to have come from a long line of witches and could read tarot cards, then told him his deceased sister’s spirit had returned and inhabited a feminine form close to him — intimating it was her — and that she was going to guide him to financial prosperity and business success,” Toronto police Detective Constable Corey Jones told Agence France-Press at the time.