A notorious Kelowna, B.C. fraudster who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Ministry of Children and Family Development with a scheme that included falsified documents and dodgy bank accounts was not able to convince the court he committed a victimless crime.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Steven Wilson said Friday that Crown counsel proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the youth in Robert Riley Saunders’s care were “at risk of deprivation,” which is an aggravating factor to the fraud he pleaded guilty to and will be sentenced for on June 22.
It was a view that didn’t sit well with the confessed criminal. He couldn’t manage to stay seated throughout the conclusion of the Gardiner hearing, a sort of trial within a trial aimed at clearing up aggravating factors related to his upcoming sentencing.
Appearing for the decision via video feed, Saunders rarely looked into the camera and hid his face for the bulk of his time in front of the judge.
Throughout the Gardiner hearing, Saunders had been similarly demonstrative of his view of testimony or points raised by Crown. During questioning, he vacillated from contrite to indignant, all the while claiming there were no youth affected by his ploy to get money from the ministry.
The youth whose names he used in his scam, and are protected under a publication ban, were living in circumstances that made them ineligible for funds, he’d argued.
In rejecting that narrative, Justice Wilson laid out the nature of the scam that made Saunders so much money.
“(He) would open a joint account in both his and the youth’s name and then (cause) checks to be issued, payable to the youth, deposited into the joint account,” Wilson said.
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“In most cases he then transferred the funds from the joint account into his own personal account at the same institution. In other instances, he cashed the cheque directly into his personal account. The vast majority of the cheques were in an amount of under $600.”
Saunders, he said, typically issued two cheques per person per month to youth, each in the amount of $579 reported to be for the shelter and support. Another $600, was doled out for startup funds.
Shelter and support payments are ongoing, whereas startup funds are generally one-time payments.
“The lion’s share of the funds misappropriated by Mr. Saunders were in the former category,” Wilson said.
“Over a period of six and a half years, Mr. Saunders opened 24 such bank accounts and issued over 850 ministry cheques totaling over $460,000. It is conceded that there was no legitimate reason to open joint accounts with the youth.”
He forged documents to support the cheque issuance, some of which even gained the signatures of supervisors.
When a youth aged out of care, Saunders would typically close the joint account.
It all went along undetected until December 2017, when Saunders’s regular supervisor was on vacation and another stepped in as his team lead.
Saunders had around 10 forms for her to authorize for payments and immediately, the interim supervisor noticed “something was amiss,” Wilson said.
One of the forms seeking payment related to a youth whom the supervisor knew to be in jail, Wilson said.
“Youth in jail are not entitled to independent living payments because their housing and food is provided through the institution,” he said.
She signed the documents because Saunders was insistent, but Wilson said she retrieved the document once Saunders left with the purpose of revoking the cheque.
Then she confronted Saunders and asked why he was issuing a cheque to a youth who was known to be in jail.
Saunders, Wilson said, told her that he was giving the money to the youth’s mother.
The supervisor then called the mother, who said that wasn’t the case.
Again, the supervisor went to Saunders who said the mother was mistaken and said he’d deposited the cheques into the account. When the supervisor pushed him to come up with proof, like screenshots of bank statements, Saunders came up short.
So, she said they needed to go higher up with the issue, and Saunders refused.
He “refused and repeatedly called (her) to ask her not to look into the matter any further,” Wilson said.
“She decided there was more to it than met the eye and went back to the office and looked it up electronically,” Wilson said.
That’s where she detected a pattern and reported Saunders.
He was suspended from employment pending an investigation in January 2018, and was subsequently terminated.
Last year, Saunders pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000, breach of trust, and using a forged document. He originally faced 13 criminal charges, including 10 counts of fraud over $5,000 and breach of trust.
Dozens of civil cases in which Saunders has been accused of defrauding children in ministry care reached a conclusion last year with a multimillion-dollar settlement with the B.C. government.
The lawsuits claimed he would open joint bank accounts with the youth in his care, and then withdraw the government money for his own use.
Saunders allegedly stole up to $500,000 over the years, and many youths in his care claim his actions left them homeless and susceptible to exploitation and drug addiction.
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