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Day care operator might try to have guilty plea thrown out

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Author: 
Calabrese, Maria
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Article
Publication Date: 
28 Mar 2010
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EXCERPTS

A day care operator who admitted in September she cheated workers
out of $73,605 might be planning to file an application for a judge to
throw out her guilty plea.

Stacy Certossi, 39, was back in court Friday morning with her
third lawyer since pleading guilty in September to defrauding the
District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board out of the
money meant for day care workers employed in 2006 with her business
Northern Home Child Care Agency.

Relations broke down with her first lawyer after her plea, and
Superior Court Justice David Nadeau has granted her five adjournments
since September, most of those to find another lawyer to represent her.

"I do want to address this as soon as possible," Nadeau said on
Friday during a phone conference in the courtroom with Bill Beach of
Sudbury.

...

Some of her day care workers have attended each of her court dates.

Certossi, who has no criminal record, admitted they were
entitled to each receive $2,760 to improve salaries and benefits at the
end of 2006.

Court heard an anonymous letter by one of the workers in January
2007 tipped off DSSAB that the subsidy had not been paid, and DSSAB
asked Certossi to prove the workers had received the subsidy.

DSSAB is partly funded by the municipality, and court heard its
legal department became involved after Certossi provided an incomplete
list of workers.

Certossi signed a deal with DSSAB in February 2005 to provide
subsidized child care. DSSAB cancelled its contract with Certossi in
the fall of 2007, and her child day care no longer operates.

- reprinted from the North Bay Nugget

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