It’s not the first time someone’s best laid plans have been dashed by Calibri

A bankrupt telecom executive’s fraudulent plan to shield two of his homes from creditors has been foiled because he used the wrong font.

Gerald McGoey, the millionaire former CEO of Look Communications, filed for bankruptcy in December, 2017.

Distroscale

When a bankruptcy trustee began combing through McGoey’s assets, the former executive provided documents purporting to shield two of his homes from creditors. The properties, a Muskoka cottage and a Caledon farm, were allegedly held in trust for McGoey and his wife’s children, according to two signed declarations.

“We agree that it is our understanding that Ledge Lodge … will be held in trust for my three children,” reads the one-page signed document for the Muskoka cottage.

There’s just one problem: Both documents were written in typefaces that were invented long after they were allegedly created.

The Muskoka cottage document, ostensibly created in 1995, was written in Cambria, a typeface that wasn’t designed until 2002.

Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Photo by National Post

The Caledon farm document, dated in 2004, was written in Calibri, a typeface that wasn’t released to the general public until the release of Windows Vista in January, 2007. It is now the default typeface on most Microsoft software, including Word, Powerpoint and Outlook.

The case, heard before the Ontario Superior Court, cited the expert evidence of Thomas W. Phinney, a self-described “ font detective ” and frequent expert witness on fonts, particularly on the development of Calibri.

“Mr. Phinney deposes that no one, other than a Microsoft employee, consultant or contract designer, could have created a document … using the Calibri typeface in March 2004,” reads the court decision.

Photo by National Post

Presented with Phinney’s evidence in court, a lawyer for the McGoeys “alluded to the possibility that the McGoeys are simply mistaken about the dates the documents were signed but that the trusts could nevertheless still be valid.”

But Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Penny wouldn’t have it. “The conclusion that the … trusts are shams is unavoidable,” he wrote in a January decision

Had McGoey used Times New Roman, a popular default Microsoft font prior to 2007, it’s possible his ruse would never have been discovered. However, Penny also noted some other “red flags” in his story, such as the fact that the McGoeys never mentioned the trust to anyone prior to getting into financial straits. “All the trusts appear to do is protect the assets from Mr. McGoey’s creditors,” wrote Penny.

Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Photo by National Post

This is not the first time that the Calibri typeface has helped bring down a fraudulent document. The 2016 release of the Panama Papers detailed a number of offshore holdings held by the then-prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif. This included two offshore companies which listed the beneficial owner as Sharif’s daughter Maryam.

In response, Maryam released documents from 2006 allegedly showing her as merely a trustee of the companies, rather than the beneficial owner. However, as font enthusiasts soon observed, the trust documents were written in Calibri one year before Maryam could have realistically had access to the typeface.

McGoey was plunged into bankruptcy shortly after an earlier court case ordered him to repay $5.6 million he had collected following a court-supervised liquidation of Look Communications’ assets.

Along with other senior executives, McGoey had collected a substantial portion of the liquidation’s proceeds by tying their compensation packages to a $0.40 per share price for Look, which was nowhere near the actual market value of the share.