A disgraced real-estate lawyer who this week admitted to pilfering millions in client money to support her and her family's lavish lifestyle was handcuffed in a Toronto courtroom Friday afternoon and marched out by a constable to serve a 20-day sentence for contempt of court, as her husband and mother watched. Singa Bui "consistently ignored orders of the court and complied only when faced with a warrant for her arrest or a threat of incarceration," Ontario Superior Court Justice William Chalmers said in sending her off to jail. He also ordered that two days after Bui gets out next month, her husband and former law partner, Nicholas Cartel, must go back in to serve 10 days remaining on his own contempt sentence, after a bizarre twist in which he was wrongly released early.
It's the latest chapter in the saga of the high-living lawyer couple whose now-defunct firm, Cartel & Bui LLP, embezzled nearly $7 million from home-buyers and sellers in southern Ontario before the scheme came crashing to a halt last year. At least 26 plaintiffs are pursuing Cartel, Bui and their firm in court. Many have already obtained judgments totalling millions of dollars, and orders for Bui and Cartel to hand over documents and answer questions about where the money went.
But they would then find themselves up against what the judge has described as repeated failures by Bui and Cartel to comply over the last 10 months, which triggered the contempt findings. Bui's husband and former law partner, Nicho.
