Sudbury contractor acquitted of 33 fraud charges

A Sudbury judge has found David Murray, owner of Ecolife Home Improvements, not guilty of 33 fraud charges. The judge ruled the Crown failed to prove its case.

David Murray, the owner of EcoLife Home Improvements in Sudbury, has been found not guilty of 33 charges of fraud over $5,000.

Ontario Court Justice Sharon Murphy rendered her decision Friday morning at the Sudbury courthouse, saying the Crown had failed to meet the burden of proof against Murray.

The decision ends a case that began more than six years ago and involved hundreds of thousands of dollars of home renovations that clients said they paid for but were never completed or started.

There were 40 complainants in the case, which was subject to numerous delays and that started before and ended well after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In handing down her decision, Murphy said she found Murray’s testimony reasonable that an unforeseeable sets of circumstances led to the problems in completing the home improvement work.

Those factors included staffing issues, manufacturer’s delays, illness, his mother’s death, bad weather and the cancellation of the Green ON incentive program by the provincial government.