Police decided to focus on investigating questionable cheques instead of missing cash at Alpha Secondary between 2008 and 2010 because cash is harder to track, according to the RCMP’s chief investigator in the case.
Const. Anna Taylor testified Wednesday at the trial of former Alpha Secondary bookkeeper Jodi Fingarsen, who is accused of defrauding her Burnaby school of about $67,000 using cheques either fraudulently generated, signed or deposited.
During her investigation, Taylor interviewed school staff who also complained of missing cash collected for things like school trips, dry grad celebrations and Advanced Placement exams.
“They did bring up the cash as well,” said Taylor, “but from the police perspective, tracing physical cash is more difficult.”
Defence lawyer John Banks, however, suggested Taylor didn’t investigate the missing cash because Alpha’s system for collecting and accounting for cash was flawed.
“Your focus turned to the cheques because the administrative system that the school was using was so sloppy and so full of holes that you didn’t have a reliable benchmark to start from to figure out how much cash had been collected and where it had all gone, isn’t that right?” Banks asked.
“I can’t speak to the school’s way of accounting for cash versus what was on hand or any flaws that may have been in the system,” said Taylor.
Once a school liaison officer in the Burnaby school district now working in the RCMP’s economic crime unit, Taylor said she was first called about Fingarsen in April 2010 by district youth services manager Sue Dorey.
Fingarsen’s RCMP file had originally been opened in 2009, according to Taylor – the same year a district audit of Alpha’s books turned up “binders and binders of problems” with the accounts, according to earlier testimony by the auditor, Lynda Kerr.
Taylor said Dorey had told her the district “did tighten up the books” but that problems had resurfaced.
The district suspended Fingarsen on April 15, 2010, and she was arrested at her Coquitlam apartment on July 18, 2012, according to Taylor.
Fingarsen’s trial continues today (Friday).
