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Vaughan man barred from Ontario legal system used fake name to pose as lawyer
The allegations weren’t the first levied at Giuseppe Alessandro, who has been barred by regulators from Ontario’s legal system.

In March, Giuseppe Alessandro pleaded guilty to one count each of fraud, forgery and disobeying a court order, admitting that he’d forged a college diploma and donned a fake name in order to offer legal services.

By Abby O’BrienStaff Reporter
A man with a history of deceiving Ontario’s court system has been found guilty of fraud after admitting he posed as a lawyer for nearly two years, despite a permanent injunction barring him from offering legal services.
Operating under the name “Rocco Rizzo,” Vaughan resident Giuseppe Alessandro managed to masquerade as a lawyer from 2022 until 2024, making two court appearances before his charade was uncovered, according to court audio obtained by the Star.
On March 4, Giuseppe, 54, pleaded guilty in a Milton courtroom to one count each of fraud, forgery and disobeying a court order, admitting that he’d faked a college diploma and donned a fake name to solicit the client.
The allegations weren’t the first levied at Giuseppe, who has been barred by regulators from Ontario’s legal system. He and his brother, Nicolino Alessandro, have repeatedly been accused of gaming the provincial courts and have both been criminally convicted since entering the industry in the early 2000s.
Still, Giuseppe has continued to operate in the peripheries of Ontario’s legal system for nearly 20 years, highlighting the long-standing challenges faced by both law enforcement and regulators to stamp out unlicensed practitioners.
Neither of the Alessandro brothers, nor Giuseppe’s lawyer, Michael Rombis, responded to the Star’s repeated inquiries.
Past criminal convictions, injunction
The Alessandro brothers’ history of defrauding the legal system dates back nearly two decades.
In 2008, they were convicted of forging appeals to have traffic convictions expunged from more than 50 of their clients driving records.
The scheme took advantage of Ontario regulations dictating that traffic convictions and subsequent demerit points can only be applied to drivers’ records for a period of two years after the date of the offence. Crucially, if an appeal is filed, convictions and points are suspended pending the result.

According to court documents reviewed by the Star, the brothers would file the forged appeals with the Ministry of Transportation, which would then suspend their clients’ conviction, but they would fail to file the same notice of appeal to the court.
Unaware of the purported appeal, the provincial courts had no mechanism to pursue the prosecution, and the cases would remain in limbo beyond the two-year mark.
By the time investigators became aware of the operation, more than 70 clients’ convictions had been successfully cleared.
After serving 18 months house arrest, the brothers were back to work; this time, hiring a handful of licensed paralegals to carry out the legal work for what Giuseppe described to clients as a “multimillion dollar law referral service.”
Recruiters, paid in cash, would approach prospective clients at the courthouse, grocery stores and even LCBOs, promising to “handle” their traffic tickets, according to former employees who spoke to the Star.
Staff then entered guilty pleas unbeknownst to clients before filing forged appeals that they never progressed. Much like the first operation, this delayed the proceedings beyond the two-year mark in which penalties remain on Ontario drivers’ records, effectively skirt convictions.

The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) soon caught on to the tactics and Giuseppe was barred indefinitely from providing legal services or referring cases in 2014. An identical injunction against Nicolino was dismissed.

Court documents suggest Giuseppe had re-emerged in the legal industry by 2021; a venture that would eventually land him his second criminal conviction.
He was hired to represent a Milton woman in a small claims proceeding that same year. According to court audio obtained by the Star, a man who identified himself as Rocco Rizzo — later revealed to be a fake identity used by Giuseppe — showed the woman a fake diploma before charging her $2,500 to take the case on.

A business card for Giuseppe Alessandro and his company, Law Advocates. Alessandro has been barred from offering or referring legal services.

Giuseppe represented the woman at two court appearances over the next two years, according to the audio. It was only when he demanded an additional $2,500, in 2024, that the woman grew suspicious and reported him to the police.
Giuseppe was arrested in April 2025, following a yearlong investigation by Halton police.
Connections to suspended GTA paralegal currently under LSO probe
Meanwhile, Nicolino also appears to have continued in the legal industry after the Law Society of Ontario’s (LSO) unsuccessful bid to bar him.

According to an LSO complaint, in 2024, Nicolino referred at least one client to Concord-based paralegal Adelin Mocanu. As previously reported by the Star, Mocanu was suspended in September after allegedly filing approximately 250 “meritless” appeals of his client’s traffic convictions in a ploy that a Brampton Justice of the Peace likened to the scheme carried out by the Alessandros in the early 2000s.
Nicolino was just one in a network of third-party agents that Mocanu allegedly relied on to acquire cases. In regulatory complaints and court documents, other former clients allege they were recruited by an anonymous Instagram user known only as “Angelo.”
The Star has not been able to confirm the identity of the user behind Angelo’s account, yet the same name appears in an online profile for an organization called the Law Help Association, which lists Giuseppe’s phone number as a point of contact. The association purports to offer legal “information” to people with limited financial resources.
The inside story of how a Toronto-area paralegal tried to game the court system with ‘sham’ ticket appeals — and left drivers on the hook

The LSO has little recourse against people who aren’t licensed. In Giuseppe’s case, for example, regulators had already put into effect many of the options at their disposal, which can include cease-and-desist letters and court injunctions, before his most recent instance of illegal practice.

According to multiple sources, Ticket Justice operated in conjunction with an anonymous Instagram account, run by someone identified only as “Angelo.”
@trafficticketgone_905angelo
In cases where an individual continues to practice law illegally, “the criminal justice system is better placed than the LSO to address situations of wide-scale unauthorized practice,” said Wing, adding that the LSO chose not to pursue further enforcement alongside the ongoing prosecution when they learned of the allegations against Giuseppe in 2024.
Giuseppe is scheduled to return to court later this month.
With files from Ben Spurr

According to the Globe and Mail:

Federal prosecutions impacted by Toronto Police corruption allegations
  
The latest: Roughly 30 federal prosecutions have been affected by criminal charges against Toronto Police Service officers allegedly tied to a sweeping police corruption probe, according to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC). Criminal charges or allegations of misconduct against a police officer can disrupt prosecutions that depend on the officer’s testimony and reliable evidence.
 
 Context: York Regional Police announced charges in February against seven serving Toronto police officers and a retired officer, as well as 19 civilians, on an array of allegations, including a plot to murder a corrections officer, bribery and drug trafficking. Investigators said members of organized crime were buying data and addresses from police officers, which were then used to co-ordinate shootings and other crimes.
 
Methodology: The PPSC confirmed the number of affected cases after The Globe and Mail obtained internal e-mails through access to information legislation, which included lists of cases involving officers who were arrested in connection to the Project South probe.
  
What’s next: The president of the Toronto Police Association, Clayton Campbell, said it was too early to know how the allegations against the officers could impact prosecutions.

The Toronto Star
Ontario’s police watchdog plans to investigate members of Toronto’s drug squad
The disciplinary probe stems from a criminal investigation into a detective accused of trying to obstruct justice by stealing evidence.

By Jim RankinStaff Reporter, and Abby O’BrienStaff Reporter

An unknown number of Toronto police drug squad officers will be the subjects of a conduct investigation by Ontario’s police watchdog, the Star has learned.
The investigations will commence following the end of the criminal case against Brian Sukhram, a detective constable with Toronto’s drug squad who is accused of stealing evidence from an investigation and attempting to obstruct justice.
Sukhram was first arrested in 2024 for impaired driving, a charge he pleaded guilty to earlier this year. Court heard that prior to his arrest, Sukhram had been drinking alcohol inside the Toronto police drug squad office after executing a search warrant.
Toronto police’s Professional Standards Unit called in the Ontario Provincial Police the following year to investigate “allegations related to members of the TPS,” Kalleen Turchet, an OPP spokesperson said in response to questions from the Star.
That OPP investigation led to Sukhram being charged again, this time for charges including breach of trust and obstruction of justice, the latter for allegedly stealing evidence in a criminal investigation.
Sukhram was the only officer charged as part of the OPP investigation, which the service says is now complete.

https://www.thesarniajournal.ca/letters-to-the-editor/being-tough-on-crime-is-the-wrong-approach-12243683

According to the Globe & Mail:

There are two layers to DADSS (Drive Alcohol Detection System for Safety program) that could someday find their ways into vehicles. Both would be designed to prevent cars from turning on when the driver’s blood alcohol content is at or above 0.08 per cent, which is the limit in many U.S. states. The mechanisms are passive, meaning a driver wouldn’t need to breathe into a special device just to turn on their car.
 
Instead, DADDS tech proposes checking a driver’s breath through sensors in the cabin that use infrared light beams to measure alcohol levels. Proposed sensor locations include the steering column and driver-side door – placed in such a way that other passengers’ breath wouldn’t affect the measurements. A second proposal would use non-invasive touch sensors, possibly on ignition buttons or on the gear shift, to measure alcohol levels in the blood beneath the skin.

Judge slams veteran prosecutor for angrily telling Toronto cop ‘we protect our own.’ Dangerous driving case tossed

By Jacques GallantCourts and Justice Reporter

When a Toronto police officer asked a veteran Crown attorney if he was supposed to lie on the stand, she responded with, “We protect our own.” 

Or words that conveyed that exact message. 

That was the damning finding made by a judge Monday against Crown attorney Marnie Goldenberg, who berated Const. Edin Hasanbasic in January in a hallway of the Toronto provincial courthouse at 10 Armoury St., in an encounter caught on video but without sound. Hasanbasic had just finished testifying for the defence in the case of a man accused of deliberately hitting a fellow officer with a motorcycle; Hasanbasic’s evidence risked hurting the Crown’s case. 

Ontario Court Justice Mara Greene concluded that Goldenberg’s conduct has negatively impacted the integrity of the justice system, and said she had no choice but to stay charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm, fail to remain at the scene of an accident, and obstruction of justice against Khalid Patrick Idris. 

While Goldenberg denied saying the words “we protect our own,” or that she was angry and swearing at Hasanbasic, the judge rejected her version of events, finding it wasn’t credible. Greene said the long-time prosecutor was “less than candid” in her testimony, “did not provide the court with a fair and fulsome account of what took place,” and had “displayed a complete lack of objectivity about this case.” Play Video

By telling Hasanbasic, “we protect our own,” or words to that effect, Goldenberg had communicated a specific message to all police officers, the judge found: “Stay on our side, or there will be consequences.”

“It is reasonable to infer that this has a real potential of having a chilling effect on officers testifying contrary to the prosecution’s theory,” Greene said.

“The only way to preserve the integrity of the justice system is for this court to distance itself from the conduct and enter a stay of proceedings.” 

Bail denials rising sharply in Ontario amid national clampdown

David Epner – The Globe and Mail

The number of people denied bail in Ontario last year spiked to its highest level in data going back to 2018, and has more than doubled over the past two years.

The new data from the Ontario Court of Justice are the latest indication of how the justice system applies the law of bail on a day-to-day basis. The 2025 numbers are more evidence that courts across the country are denying bail to an increasing number of people.It is a long-established trend, one that Ontario has led in recent years.

Other evidence also shows that people accused of crimes in Ontario are being denied bail in record numbers. As of last September, according to Statistics Canada, more people in the province’s jails were there on remand after being denied bail than at any point since the late 1970s, when those records began.

This is happening under federal bail laws that are about to become stricter. Last fall, the federal government introduced Bill C-14 to make it more difficult for people accused of serious crimes to get bail. People denied bail must remain in custody. They have been charged with crimes but have not yet had trials and are presumed innocent.

In Ontario, 86 per cent of people in provincial jails are on remand, having been denied bail. Jails in the province are over capacity. The Canadian Press this month reported Ontario plans to spend $4-billion to expand jails in the next six years, enabling it to imprison more people.