EDMONTON – Lloyd Carr’s elaborate web of lies was systematically unravelled before a Court of Queen’s Bench Justice on Friday afternoon.
Carr, a former executive director at the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, was to be sentenced Friday afternoon for defrauding the provincial government agency of $634,000 between 2004 and 2006.
However, in the days since his sentencing hearing on Monday, details of new frauds and scams committed by Carr, 46, have come to light.
“He is a leopard who hasn’t changed his spots,” Crown prosecutor Gregory Lepp told court. “He attempted to put some makeup on his spots on Monday, but the makeup has come off.”
As The Journal reported earlier, Carr told his probation officer and defence counsel that he had been supporting his family by working as a painter in Manitoba, where he had relocated his family since the fraud charges were laid in Alberta.
In fact, Carr had been working full-time as a mental health clinician with a regional health authority in Manitoba for the past 18 months. His employer knew nothing of his criminal charges in Alberta.
Court heard that Carr had told his bosses he needed a leave of absence from work for cancer treatments, starting April 12, the day his court proceedings began in Alberta.
He provided a forged medical note and said he would be gone for several weeks to have part of his bowel removed, Lepp said.
Court also heard that Carr got his position with the health authority in Manitoba by presenting them with a fake Bachelor’s of Social Work from the University of Calgary. It is the same scam Carr used when he applied to AADAC in 1997 with a false degree from that university.
“AADAC was taken, the health authority was taken. The probation officer, defence counsel, the court – attempted fraud was perpetrated on us as well, and we were almost taken,” Lepp told court.
Lepp suggested on Monday that Carr should receive a three- to five-year sentence for his conviction of fraud over $5,000. He suggested on Friday that Carr should receive the upper end of that sentencing range.
Carr’s defence lawyer Daryl Royer said his client does in fact own a painting business, although he acknowledged that Carr has been working full-time as a mental health clinician.
Royer suggested that Carr’s guilty plea remains a mitigating factor to be considered for his sentence, since it denotes an acceptance of responsibility and has saved the court the time and resources that would have come from a trial.
Carr addressed the court.
“I just stand by my words on Monday,” he said. “Change in the way you do things is not an overnight journey.”
Carr said he had wronged numerous people and that it would be a “lifelong journey to make amends for that.”
“I’ve been forgiven by the Lord. Now my debt to society needs to be paid,” he said.
Justice Mary Moreau is scheduled to come back late Friday afternoon with a sentencing decision.
Carr’s fraud of AADAC first came to light in 2006 when then-auditor general Fred Dunn released a report stating that an employee had used contracts aimed at stopping youth from smoking to funnel funds into personal accounts.
Most of the money went directly to the employee to pay for a down payment on a new house, for a vehicle loan, and for bank machine withdrawals, Dunn alleged.
In Dunn’s report, Carr apparently told investigators he had a gambling problem.
In court earlier this week, he also stated the fraud was a result of a gambling problem. However, throughout years of civil litigation, Carr blamed it on an AADAC colleague who he claimed had urged him to commit the fraud.
That allegation has proven to be false.
More to come …
azabjek@thejournal.canwest.com
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