Garth Drabinsky leaves a Toronto court house in this file photo.Charla Jones/The Globe and Mail
Garth Drabinsky, the Toronto theatre mogul jailed for fraud, will have to spend Thanksgiving weekend in prison, as a court hearing that had been scheduled for Friday on whether he deserves bail while the Supreme Court of Canada mulls his bid for an appeal was postponed.
The Ontario Court of Appeal was set to hear arguments from Mr. Drabinsky's lawyers on Friday. But court officials said the matter had been adjourned until Tuesday morning.
Last month, a three-judge panel of the court refused to overturn Mr. Drabinsky's two fraud convictions, which came after a trial of him and his business partner, Myron Gottlieb.
The judges did trim their sentences, however, with Mr. Drabinsky facing five years in prison and Mr. Gottlieb four. There was no word on whether Mr. Gottlieb would file a bail application.
Their company, Livent Inc., was once dominant on the Canadian theatre scene. But it fell apart in bankruptcy in 1998 costing investors an estimated $500-million.
Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto of the Ontario Superior Court sentenced Mr. Drabinsky to seven years in prison and Mr. Gottlieb to six years after ruling the men systematically misstated the financial results of Livent between 1993 and 1998.
The pair appealed that ruling to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which upheld the convictions last month but reduced Mr. Drabinsky's sentence to five years and Mr. Gottlieb's to four. Both have been in prison since the failed appeal.
This week, Mr. Drabinsky moved to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to hear his case, and requested bail pending the appeal. His appeal to the Supreme Court is not automatic -- the top court could refuse to hear the case.
The saga has been closely watched in Canada's business community because it is extremely rare for senior executives of a publicly traded company to be charged with fraud or to serve time in jail in Canada.
Livent went public in 1991 and became the largest live theatre company in North America until it collapsed in 1998 after new owners said they had uncovered evidence of accounting improprieties.
Jeff Gray