Producer Garth Drabinsky Released on Day Parole

According to the Globe and Mail, Livent Inc. co-founder Garth Drabinsky has been granted day parole after a parole hearing today, October 24, 2012. At the hearing, Drabinsky took responsibility as Livent's CEO for the company's fraud but also stated that his accounting staff proceeded to cross the line without his knowledge.

Drabinsky will be eligible to begin day parole on November 11 and told the parole board he would like to continue working as a producer, as well as teaching or lecturing.

"I just want to be an active member of Canadian society," he said. "I want to return to my artistic roots and I want to contribute to the cultural landscape of the country."

Read the original report here.

Drabinsky is currently serving a five-year sentence, which began in September 2011, at Beaver Creek Institution in Gravenhurst, Ontario, north of Toronto. Even during his trial, the arts producer acted as artistic director for the BlackCreek Music Festival in 2011 and produced the film Barrymore.

Drabinsky and his business partner Myron Gottlieb were convicted of two counts of fraud in 2009 after misreporting Livent's quarterly financial statements after the company went public, from 1993 to 1998. Gottlieb received a four-year sentence and has since been released on parole.

Livent was one of North America's biggest live theatre companies in the 1990s but has since gone out of business. The company had produced such Broadway shows as Ragtime, Showoat, The Phantom of the Opera and Kiss of the Spider Woman.