Courthouse Details:
Location: 10 Armoury Street,
Toronto, Ontario
(walking distance from subways & City Hall)
Room # tbd
Start Time 10 am (tbd)
Court is Open to the Public
Tried by judge only (no jury)
Zoom is not available.
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About the trial
Fortress Criminal Trial
R. v Rathore & Petrozza
The criminal trial for the Principals of Fortress Real Developments began October 28, 2024, through to May 28, 2025.
Jawad Rathore and Vince Petrozza were criminally charged in June, 2022 with Fraud and Secret Commissions for their role in promoting Fortress Syndicated Mortgage Loan “SML” investments. The RCMP IMET began their investigation in 2015, and in 2018 executed their search warrants, and seized items from Fortress and their affiliate brokerages (Centro/BDMC, FDS, FMP, & FFM).
The prosecution chose to focus on 2 projects during the trial - Sky City and Collier.
On May 28, Justice D. Moore delivered his guilty verdict.
Q & A
1. Who are Jawad Rathore and Vince Petrozza?
Rathore and Petrozza are the founders and principals of Fortress Real Development. Rathore is the CEO, and Petrozza is the COO. Petrozza was also the principal broker for Centro/BDMC. Fortress and its affiliated brokerages raised over $920 million in syndicated mortgage investments to help fund the "soft costs" of their developments. Investors who were everyday "mom & pop" investors were led to believe the SML investments were secure and low risk. In total, over $900 million was raised from all syndicated mortgage investments. Thousands of investors have lost their life savings investing in Fortress SMLs.
2. Why are they being tried in a criminal court?
Rathore and Petrozza were criminally charged with Fraud and Secret Commissions after a lengthy RCMP investigation. It is alleged that the founders of Fortress Real Developments engaged in fraud by orchestrating an ongoing scheme whereby they did not disclose the various risks to brokers and investors of syndicated mortgages.
3. What is a syndicated mortgage?
A syndicate mortgage is a group of individuals who lend money privately to a borrower to finance real estate developments, such as residential condo buildings. In the case of Fortress Real Development Inc, loans were secured against a major development proposal known as a Syndicated Mortgage Investment (“SMI”).These funds were primarily to finance the ‘soft costs’ of a real estate development. They are also referred to as Syndicated Mortgage Loans (SML) as the investors in effect leant money to the borrower (developer).
4. Is zoom available for this trial?
Unfortunately there are technical issues that prevent the trial from being shared over zoom. If you are able to attend in person, there are many TTC options for those of you in the GTA. Please go to the Trip Planner site for assistance. https://www.ttc.ca/trip-planner
5. What should I expect at the courthouse? What can I bring?
Please refer to the courtroom guidelines and etiquette.
6. Which projects are they focussing on during the trial?
Even though Fortress raised money for over 70 projects, (there were about 45 at the time of the RCMP raid), the RCMP narrowed their investigation on Collier, Crates Landing/South Shore, Harmony Village & Sky City.
7. Who is the prosecutor?
It is crown attorney Scott Patterson.
