Kelowna fraudster who bilked $460K from Indigenous youth gets day parole

A notorious Kelowna fraudster who bilked more than $460,000 from the Ministry of Children and Family Development in the names of vulnerable Indigenous youth so he could fund a “lavish lifestyle” has been granted day parole.

Robert Riley Saunders, 53, was sentenced in July 2022 to five years in prison for fraud over $5,000, breach of trust as a public officer, and causing a person to use a forged document, and this week he was granted day parole for the next six months.

“After reviewing and weighing the relevant factors in your case, the board puts weight on your limited criminal history, your good behaviour when on bail, your positive engagement in voluntary interventions, and your viable release plan,” the parole board said in a decision addressed to Saunders and released on Friday.

Saunders, however, did not manage to convince the board that he deserved full parole.

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The board said it was struck by Saunders’s “capacity for exploitation and manipulation” in the offences he’s been serving time for.

“You used your employment, in a position of trust with vulnerable Indigenous youth, to financially exploit and defraud a system put in place to help young individuals who lack the opportunity and resources to help themselves,” the parole board said.

“Of particular concern, you carried out these offenses repeatedly over a six-year period despite witnessing firsthand that these funds were needed by the young people you were supposed to protect. The board remains acutely aware that your offending caused Indigenous youth to suffer while you lived a lavish lifestyle and bragged about it to them.”

The board pointed out that Saunders continues to require oversight given his ability to keep his misdeeds a secret for so long and that his proposed release plan offered little financial certainty, “which has the potential to be destabilizing.”

While being released on day parole, Saunders will continue to be monitored and will have access to programs that will help his rehabilitation. Something the board indicated was still needed.

At Saunders’s hearing, he told the board that he agreed with the official version of his offences — that he opened 24 bank accounts over 6.5 years and stole over $460,000 from vulnerable Indigenous youth and the provincial government.

He said there was no excuse for his criminal choices and attributed them to “skewed thinking, greed and willingness to disregard the consequences.”

He likened his decisions to an addiction, in which he was engaged in habitual behaviour, was numb to the consequences and was “trying to compensate for inadequate feelings.”

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“You attributed court documents in which the judge identified a lack of remorse and true understanding of the very serious impact of your actions to a legal strategy orchestrated by your lawyers,” the decision read.

“The board found many of the words you used such as being ‘financially desperate’ and sorry for ‘this mistake’ as attempts to continue to lie and skirt full responsibility to the fact that your offending continued for a lengthy period, spanned approximately 850 separate transactions and that you committed the offences while having a first hand account of the real and imminent struggles of the youth you were supposed to be supporting,” the board said to Saunders.

Over a period of six and a half years, Saunders was a case worker for the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and opened 24 such bank accounts and issued over 850 ministry cheques totalling over $460,000.

To put that into perspective, during his 2022 trial, the judge explained that Saunders’s average take-home employment income was $4,000 per month. By 2015, he doubled that through his scheme. By 2017, he had tripled his take-home income.

In the pre-sentence report, the author said Saunders used the funds to “create an identity of being rich, wishing to associate with others who enjoyed a similar lifestyle.”

That lifestyle included a very nice home, vehicles, a boat and numerous trips and vacations. While he was enjoying the spoils of his scheme, the youth in his care was struggling, as explained in the victim impact statements.

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It wasn’t until one supervisor went on leave in 2017 and another stepped in and noticed his paperwork had some unusual discrepancies that his deceptions came to light.