Former Canada Post employee Susan Boyer has been sentenced to 28 months in custody for her role in defrauding Canada post of more than $325,000 over a five-year period.
Boyer was sentenced in North Battleford provincial court Monday morning by Judge David Kaiser.
As for where the sentence will be served a request has been made to have Boyer serve the sentence at the Okimow Ohci Healing Lodge, but the judge has made no order on that request and it will be up to the federal penitentiary system to determine where she will serve her time.
There has also been a restitution order made for the full amount of $325,597. Boyer has already made restitution in the amount of $130,000. A victims of crime surcharge of $200 has also been ordered; there is no probation ordered.
Boyer was in court Monday morning along with her defence attorney Ivan Frank. She has been out on bail to this point.
Both the Crown and defence made a joint submission on sentence, which Judge Kaiser had no problem in going along with. Crown prosecutor Mitch Piche said to reporters afterwards the submission was “right in line with the case authority for this type of case and this type of offender.”
The early guilty plea, the restitution, and her remorse for her actions were seen as mitigating factors. On the other hand, aggravating factors include the magnitude, planning and duration of the fraud, concealing of the cheques in relation to the frauds, as well as the individual being in a position of trust and taking advantage of her position in the community.
“We have to trust the people that we hire to be honest, and to do their jobs,” Piche said.
More details have also emerged in court on how Boyer was able to defraud Canada Post over a number of years.
According to the submission of facts on sentencing, Boyer defrauded Canada Post of $325,000 while working at the North Battleford Post Office. In the sentencing submission made by the Crown to the court, Boyer used an “elaborate scheme” to conceal frauds occurring between January 2011 and November 2015.
Twenty-eight separate transactions were identified in which Boyer defrauded Canada Post of $325,000.
According to the submission, the basic method Boyer used to defraud Canada Post involved payments made by local businesses that mailed out large volume mailings to their customers. These mailings were conducted at the North Battleford Post Office.
“Boyer was responsible for overseeing the financial aspects of the Post Office and preparation of the Post Office bank deposits. In all 28 of the fraudulent transactions identified, the payments were made to Canada Post by cheque. Boyer would conceal the transaction and not record that payment was ever received by Canada Post in the Retail Point of Sale system. Boyer would make a hand written (off-book receipt) and give it to the customer.”
The submission goes on to state, “the customer did not know that such hand written receipts were not allowed. As a result, there would be no record that the transaction occurred in any Canada Post system or financial ledger.”
Boyer would then exchange the cheque for cash that had accumulated from other transactions when preparing the deposit. She would remove the cash from the deposit equal to the amount of the cheque and include the cheque instead. The average cheque involved in the 28 transactions exceeded $11,000.
The submission also stated there was a slight variation of this method Boyer used in three of 28 transactions, in which the transactions were entered dishonestly as postage sales.
“By purposely entering the transaction as a postage sale she would then have postage inventory that she could sell off-book to stamp shop vendors that purchase large quantities of postage.”
There were six instances of fraud in 2011 amounting to $68,567, eight instances in 2012 amounting to $73,603, five instances in 2013 amounting to $68,750, six instances in 2014 amounting to $69,323 and three instances in 2015 amounting to $45,355 for a total sum of $325,597.
