Former London mayor Joe Fontana is at home in Arva, learning to cope in his own personal jail.

For the next four months, with few exceptions, including work, the 64-year-old can’t leave home.

No going to the store for milk.

No dropping in on friends.

No booze.

Under the conditions of his sentence, Fontana can’t leave Ontario or venture anywhere without the permission of his sentence supervisor. If he doesn’t follow the rules, he goes to a real jail.

“I made a big, big mistake,” Fontana told Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas Tuesday, before he was sentenced on charges of fraud and breach of trust by a public official.

Fontana’s house arrest is part of the price he will pay for a doctored $1,700 expense claim dating back to 2005, when he was a Liberal MP and cabinet minister.

The fallout also cost him the mayor’s chair, from which he resigned in disgrace last month.

It all left the usually affable career politician an emotional wreck at the London courthouse Tuesday.

“It’s been a very difficult two years for my family, for the community,” he said outside court.

“I think I said it in my statement (in court) that I regret the shame, the embarrassment, the pain I caused my family and my community.”

Fontana talked about his family, his three grandchildren, his city and how he wants to take each day one at a time. But when he was asked how he’d cope over the next four months, he said he had “no idea.”

“I’m going to have to live with this for the rest of my life,” he said, his emotions surfacing again.

“But I’ve got a lot more to offer.”

Fontana’s raw emotions stood out.

The swagger he showed during his May criminal trial was gone, replaced with a tearful, contrite and defeated man not seen before in public.

The subdued and tearful Fontana was centre stage during Tuesday’s sentencing arguments.

Assistant Crown attorney Tim Zuber asked the judge to consider a four- to six-month jail sentence. He said Fontana’s scheme to use his son’s hall-rental wedding contract with the Marconi Club as a fraudulent expense “tarnished the public image of the vast majority of people in government who do their job with honesty and integrity.”

Fontana, Zuber said, went out of his way to change the document, fax it and file it.

The only motive, he said, appeared to be “personal greed.”

Zuber said that in 2005, someone making $19,000 a year would have paid about $1,700 in income tax — money that could have gone to Pacific tsumami relief, or the Afghanistan campaign or public housing.

Fontana, he said, paid $2,100 for the night table of snacks at his son’s weeding that included a chocolate-covered strawberry tree and smoked salmon.

Defence lawyer Gordon Cudmore argued for probation and community service, pointing to the 45 letters of support for Fontana from all walks of life that were filed to the court – lawyers, doctors, people who run charities, new Canadians, people who’d been helped directly by him.

Cudmore said he had about 200 e-mails from people wanting to discuss Fontana’s public contributions.

He called Fontana’s actions a “one-off,” pointing to the ex-MP’s 18 years in Ottawa with annual budgets of $4 million to $5 million and “not a whisper of problems.”

It was when Cudmore mentioned the death of Fontana’s mother in July 2005, just three months after filing the fraudulent expense, that Fontana fall apart.

He bent over the defence table and shook with tears, the enormity of the situation apparently hitting him square for the first time in public.

“Jail is not required to achieve the ends of justice,” Cudmore said, noting his client had endured social media scorn — the equivalent of the stocks.

“Internet stocks and (being) pilloried by Twitter,” he said. “He has been ridiculed, humiliated and denounced.”

Cudmore also said Thomas’s words when convicting Fontana were “harsh” and “heard from coast to coast.”

Fontana had already given Cudmore $1,700 to pay back the government.

Thomas said he was stumped why a man who served 18 years as an MP would carry out such a “rudimentary” and “child-like” forgery. “The reasons confound me,” he said. “Perhaps it simply was because he could.”

The judge said he was aware it was a single ccrime for only $1,700. Any other 64-year-old man with no record, and not in the public eye, would have seen their charges diverted from court by the Crown.

But like a pebble thrown in the water, Thomas said, that one act by a politician had a ripple effect. Such actions lead people to “question the work of government,” he said.

A strong message needed to be sent to the community.

“This offence is graver than $1,700 would suggest,” he said.

Thomas acknowledged Fontana’s “reputation is in tatters,” but the 45 letters acknowledge his contributions to the United Way, public housing, feeding the hungry, helping the disabled and disadvantaged, economic development and neighbourhood renewal.

Many described Fontana, Thomas said, as “the people’s mayor.”

Pointing to Fontana’s tearful statement to court, the judge also said “some would see the apology as a long time coming.”

Four months at home is a stern penalty, Cudmore said later.

“It’s not a kiss as a sentence. It’s a major sentence,” he said.

He said his client has remorse and his comments were “straight from the heart.”

He wouldn’t comment on whether Fontana had recognized he’d committed a crime.

But, he added, there won’t be an appeal.

jane.sims@sunmedia.ca

twitter.com/JaneatLFPress

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THE EX-MAYOR



Fontana’s statement to the judge:

Your Honour,

Sixty years ago, in fact just last month, my family and I were given the incredible honour and privilege to come to a great country as immigrants.

For 32 years, I tried to serve my constituents, both the city and the country.

Nine years ago, I did something very, very stupid. Very, very, very wrong. I made a big, big mistake.

What’s ensued since then is I disgraced my family. My mother and father — my wife, my kids, my family, my friends, my city, my country and the very institutions I always respected, especially this one.

Your Honour, I regret the pain and embarrassment I have caused by family, and when my 10-year old grandson has to start defending me in the school yard.

I regret the pain I caused them — my family, my friends, the city I love and the country I love.

Your Honour, I am going to have to live with this for the rest of my life. I know that.

Thank you.

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THE JUDGE

Highlights of what Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas said:

About the fraud:

“Rudimentary,” pulled off in “a childlike way.”

About the motivation:

“The reasons confound me. Perhaps it was simply because he could . . .”

“Personal gain was the only motive despite Mr. Fontana’s significant salary, benefits and office budget.”

About the crime’s gravity, for a politican:

“This offence is graver than the $1,700 would suggest.”

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IN FONTANA'S CORNER

Former politicians, agency heads and developers were among those who vouched for Fontana in 45 character reference letters filed with the court (see below). They included:

Former London mayor Tom Gosnell

Former London Liberal MP Glen Pearson

Other former House of Commons colleagues, including Liberals Stan Keyes, Sergio Marchi and Tony Valeri

Lawyer Michael Lerner

Lawyer Faisal Joseph

Jim MacKinnon, a London labour leader

London-based developer Shmuel Farhi

Don Donner, former head, Boys’ and Girls’ Club of London

Fontana Letters