Toronto: A former judge of the powerful Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board is in the dock for seeking sex from a South Korean woman refugee for granting her Canadian residence.
A court in Toronto on Monday heard that Steve Ellis, now 50, told the then 25-year-old refugee claimant Ji-Hye Kim in September 2006 that he will reject her application for permanent residence if she didn't have sex with him.
The woman recorded his conversation with the help of her then boyfriend.
Ellis made the sex proposal to the woman during his meetings with her at a Toronto restaurant where she worked as a waitress, the court heard. After his two visits to her, the woman set the trap during his third visit and recorded his lewd conversation with the help of her boyfriend.
While she hid an audio recording device to record his voice, her boyfriend secretly shot the meeting on a video camera.
In the conversation, the judge tells the Korean woman his terms for settling her case in her favour.
"You've got a boyfriend and I've got a wife. If we do things on the side, that's okay. I'm not going to asking you to move in with me or anything like that,'' the prosecution lawyer quoted Ellis as telling the woman.
"I'm not going to fall in love with you.''
Kissing her goodbye, Ellis told the woman to keep their meetings secret from her lawyer and boyfriend. If the secret is revealed, he told her that he would be in trouble and "she would lose her (permanent residence) status.''
But she went ahead and reported the matter to police. Ellis was suspended as the immigration board judge and a case registered against him. He has denied the charges. But the prosecution says it has clinching video and audio evidence to nail him.
The Korean woman has since become Canada resident and married. Judges of the immigration board are often political appointees, enjoying salaries of more than $120,000. Their position assumes significance as Canada has about 60,000 pending cases of refugees seeking permanent residence.
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