A former immigration judge has been found guilty of trying to coerce sex from a South Korean refugee claimant in return for a favourable ruling on her case.

“He knew that what he was doing was wrong,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Thea Herman said Wednesday in finding Steve Ellis guilty of breach of trust and an Immigration and Refugee Protection Act charge of bribery.

“Mr. Ellis abused his position to his own advantage.”

Ellis, 51, who is also a former Toronto city councillor, showed little reaction to Herman’s ruling at first, but at one point raised his head and sighed.

Ellis presided over Ji Hye Kim’s refugee hearing in July 2006, reserving his decision. Two months later, he twice visited the Korean restaurant where she worked and arranged to meet her for coffee to discuss her case.

Suspicious of Ellis’ intentions, Kim’s then-boyfriend and now-husband, Brad Tripp, recorded the Sept. 26, 2006 meeting at a Starbucks patio on Bloor St. near Bathurst.

Tripp wired Kim for sound and parked across the street with a video camera, filming the meeting until dark.

The resulting 43-minute sound tape, 28 minutes of which had corresponding video, was the centrepiece of the Crown’s case.

The tape shows Ellis telling the slender, 25-year-old South Korean that he still had not decided on her claim but was leaning toward approval.

“I really like you, and I really want to be friends with you,” Ellis said.

Ellis asked if she had a boyfriend. When she said she did, he told her that was okay because he had a wife and they “can be secret on this too.”

He warned her not to tell her boyfriend about their meeting because he might try to make trouble. “He’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, you know that guy . . . she’s f---ing him and that’s why he said yes.”

Ellis told Kim he had a loveless marriage and was planning to dump his Filipina mistress.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to be demanding. I’m not going to ask you to move in with me or anything like that. . . . I’m not going to fall in love with you.”

John Rosen, Ellis’s lawyer, had argued that his client might have behaved inexcusably toward Kim, but he never actually asked for sex in exchange for giving her refugee status.

But Crown attorney Lynda Trefler alleged that Ellis, named to the federal refugee board in 2000, plotted the woman’s seduction from an early stage. He had “a detailed and deliberate plan to manipulate her psychologically” and get her into bed, Trefler said.

The judge said although Ellis never directly told Kim he would change his decision from a no to a yes if she had a relationship with him, his intentions were clear.

“There is no doubt that Mr. Ellis intended to use his public office — in particular, his considerable power over Ms. Kim — for his own benefit, that is, for an intimate relationship with Ms. Kim,” Herman said.

“Mr. Ellis literally held Ms. Kim’s life in his hands,” Herman said. “He toyed with her right up to the end.”

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Kim told reporters outside court that she was very happy with the result, which shows that Canadian justice applies to immigration adjudicators too.

“I’m just glad that no one will have to go through what I went through,” said Kim, now a landed immigrant.

Rosen said that he and his client were disappointed with the decision but will not decide whether to appeal until reading it in its entirety.

Ellis will be back in court for a sentencing hearing on June 4. Both offences carry maximum sentences of five years.