A former chief of staff to Dalton McGuinty is guilty of deleting documents in a “dishonest” scheme to protect the Liberals from the fallout of power plants axed before the 2011 election, a judge ruled Friday.

“No issues were more challenging ‎or dangerous to the minority Liberal government,” Justice Timothy Lipson said in a lengthy ruling against David Livingston, just five months before the June 7 provincial election.

“This was the grim political backdrop.”

Livingston, a career banker before being lured into the political world, faces up to 10 years in prison — a prospect defence lawyer Brian Gover dismissed as “absurd” given his client’s “unblemished” record.

The verdict on criminal charges of attempted mischief to data and unauthorized use of a computer against Livingston and deputy chief Laura Miller took four suspenseful hours to deliver, not including a tense lunch break of more than an hour.

Miller was found not guilty and, visibly shaking, left the courthouse through a back door into a waiting SUV. Livingston’s wife put her arm around him as they left the courtroom.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 26. Crown attorney Tom Lemon said prosecutors will seek jail time for Livingston.

“We may well be submitting that a fine would be appropriate,” Gover told reporters outside the courthouse. “Probation may be appropriate.”

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List of computers to be wiped came from premier McGuinty’s deputy chief of staff, court told

Livingston, whom Gover described as “disappointed,” did not comment and left the courthouse through a side door.

The judge said both Livingston and Miller arranged for the “indiscriminate wiping” of the hard drives of 20 computers in the McGuinty premier’s office before Kathleen Wynne took power in February 2013 — despite legal orders from a legislative committee to produce relevant documents on the controversial power plant cancellations.

But it was Livingston who deliberately ignored warnings from Ontario’s top civil servant to preserve records and who “dishonestly” obtained a special password enabling Miller’s common-law spouse Peter Faist, a private computer consultant, to clear the hard drives in a “scorched earth strategy,” Lipson said.

With the government in “crisis management and damage control” over demands for explanations on why the plants were cancelled so close to an election, “Mr. Livingston resorted to extreme and unauthorized measures,” the judge added.

The fact Faist was brought in and paid $11,000 by the Liberal party for his work was “compelling circumstantial evidence” that Livingston intended to wipe records to thwart the legislative committee and freedom-of-information requesters, Lipson told a packed courtroom.

While defence lawyers argued during the trial that Faist was signed in with security and did his work in daylight hours, the judge ruled “the lack of concealment does not diminish the dishonest character of the acts.”

He said Faist did not have the proper security clearance and was using unauthorized software.

Lipson shot down the defence assertion that hard drives were being wiped to clear personal information such as resumés and family photos.

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“It is simply implausible.”

Lipson also noted Livingston expressed “obvious disdain” for the legislative committee’s power to demand politically sensitive documents, as evidenced by the former chief of staff’s remark that such authority was “political bullshit.”

Opposition parties said the conviction will play a role in coming election campaign, reminding voters of the scandal.

Ontario’s auditor general found that scrapping the plants in Oakville and Mississauga, where they were not wanted by local residents, and moving them to Sarnia and Napanee will cost up to $1.1 billion over 20 years.

“No verdict is going to bring the $1.1 billion back,” said Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli (Nipissing)

“We have a sense of a Liberal party that will do anything at any price to families to protect its seats, to protect itself, and that was just validated by the verdict today,” said New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto-Danforth).

Wynne spokesperson Jennifer Beaudry distanced the current administration from Livingston and Miller in a brief statement.

“This matter involved former staff to the former premier. We’ve been clear from the start that this is not how anyone in government should operate, and it is not how a premier’s office should operate.”

Livingston, a former TD Bank executive, also served as chief executive of Infrastructure Ontario before joining the premier’s office in May 2012 for an eight-month stint before McGuinty resigned over the gas-plant scandal. Miller most recently worked as executive director of the B.C. Liberals.

The two were charged in 2015 after a two-year Ontario Provincial Police anti-rackets investigation prompted by a request from two Conservative MPPs. McGuinty was not a subject of the probe and co-operated with detectives.

During the trial that began in September, more serious charges of breach of trust against Miller and Livingston were dropped by the Crown for lack of evidence.

Miller’s lawyer, Scott Hutchison, said “this has been a long and very difficult process for Laura . . . she’s gratified to be able to move on with her life.”

“She’s going to take some time, get this distraction behind her and move on. I have no doubt that she will continue to contribute to public life in Canada in the way that she has for so many years.”

Miller and Livingston never took the stand because their lawyers opted not to call any witnesses in the trial.

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