PENTICTON – The two men behind a failed and controversial hockey association in Penticton have each been charged with three criminal offenses.
The charges relate to a planned hockey trip to Europe through the Okanagan Elite Hockey Association.
The company raised more than $100,000 from parents of the minor hockey players before abruptly cancelling the trip in January 2012.
Loren Reagan (alias Lorne Peter Masson) and Michael Gordon Elphicke are charged with fraud and theft over $5,000 and unauthorized management of a lottery scheme.
In a phone interview from Alberta where he’s now working, Elphicke says the unlawful lottery charges likely relate to raffle tickets sold to raise money for the European hockey trip.
Elphicke denies any criminal wrong-doing and calls his former business partner a “creep”.
He alleges Reagan used the hockey trip money on a failed attempt by the Okanagan Elite Hockey Association to build a hockey dormitory in Penticton.
Contractors to that partially constructed project, which was later removed, have also filed court action claiming they are collectively owed more than $1.6 million.
Some of the hockey parents have also filed a civil lawsuit to try to recover their money.
In 2012 the lawyer for the parent group, Nathan Wahoski, told Global Okanagan News “We don’t know where the money went. We know the money is gone. The two individuals that took the money are essentially blaming each other for misappropriating the money.”
Reagan and Elphicke have separate, preliminary court dates in Penticton in April on the criminal charges.
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