Jury selection was completed and the Crown’s opening argument delivered Tuesday at the trial of Rick and Susan Hayhow.
The couple, who have since separated, are accused of using more than $420,000 from adoption agency Imagine Adoption to pay for personal expenses.
They have since separated.
Cambridge-based Imagine Adoption filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
A police investigation ended with the arrest of the Hayhows in 2011.
Rick Hayhow had been the non-profit’s general manager, with Susan Hayhow as its executive director.
Tuesday, in a Kitchener court, Crown attorney David Foulds told the jury that a corporation like Imagine Adoption is a legal entity unto itself.
"It is not the property of the people who run the organization,” he said.
The Crown also called its first witness, Brock Lasso of Canadian Home and Renovation Team.
Lasso testified that three bathrooms and one kitchen on the Hayhows’ property were renovated between 2007 and 2009.
Jurors were shown three cheques allegedly used to pay for the work, issued by Imagine Adoption and signed by the Hayhows, totaling nearly $50,000.
The trial continues Wednesday.
