Fraudster helped pave path to homelessness and criminality for victim: BCSC says

The misdeeds of a Kelowna fraudster helped pave a path to criminality for one of his many victims, a B.C. Supreme Court judge says.

Former Ministry of Children and Family Services worker Robert Riley Saunders’s crimes were discussed in a Kelowna courtroom again last week, as a man he was once supposed to support was sentenced for a laundry list of crimes by BC Supreme Court Justice Bruce Elwood.

The 30 year old man was sentenced by Elwood to five years in prison for seven charges, including a variety of firearms and drug offences.

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Elwood said the man’s criminal journey has roots in his childhood, highlighting that he was put into foster care when he was three years old. Since that time, he lived in dozens of homes, many of which saw abuse was a constant theme.

When the man aged out, Elwood said his supervision fell to “an infamous social worker who was eventually convicted for defrauding the province by stealing money from the Indigenous children in his care.”

Saunders, the judge wrote, deprived Soderberg of funds “meant to provide him with housing and basic necessities.  As a result, Mr. Soderberg experienced homelessness and poverty.”

His criminal history began shortly thereafter, in 2009, when he was 15 years old. His first adult conviction was in 2012 for trafficking, for which he received a 12-month conditional sentence order. More than a decade later, with more than 50 offences to his credit, Soderberg had to face the consequences of a January 2022 incident, that started when he was found passed out in a car, motor running.

Elwood said that the man had a 99 millimetre handgun inside a shoulder holster in his coat, a pump action shotgun in his trunk and drugs in his car.  He also had around $9,000 in cash.  Released days after the arrest, he was caught by police again under similar conditions. This time when he woke up he tried to get away.

The man was arrested and police seized an AR-15 style rifle with a magazine with live rounds inserted and the safety set to “fire”, a SKS style rifle, a .308 semi-automatic rifle and a fully loaded pump-action shotgun. Police also seized a BB-style air gun and an imitation shotgun loaded with paintballs.

In sentencing the man, Elwood said that he considered history to be a significant factor.

“The most significant mitigating factors in this case relate to the man’s experience growing up in Canada as an Indigenous youth from a broken family,” Elwood said.

“This is a young man who has suffered his entire life from the ravages of drug addition, physical and psychological abuse, institutional racism and neglect. He is not an offender who has been motivated by profit or the desire to own luxury goods. Rather, his motivation appears to have been survival and feeding his own addictions.”

Elwood said it appears from his criminal record that the man’s chronic possession of firearms has related to personal safety in the drug trade, rather than using the weapons to commit violent crimes.

“I find that systemic and background factors relating to the man’s circumstances as an Indigenous person have played a significant role in bringing him before the court,” he said.

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