A former Burnaby school bookkeeper found guilty of stealing a total of more than $62,000 from two former employers was led from a courtroom in handcuffs Thursday and will spend the next 18 months in jail.
Jodi Fingarsen, a bookkeeper at Alpha Secondary School between 2007 and 2010, was convicted of two counts of fraud over $5,000 on Dec. 8, 2016.
Her case centred around numerous cheques, including bogus Alpha Secondary cheques made out to her directly, third-party cheques made out to businesses and individuals owed money by Alpha, and third-party cheques made out to the Altus Group in Vancouver from clients for services rendered.
Crown prosecutor Jennifer Horneland had called for a jail term of two years less a day and a period of probation, while Fingarsen’s lawyer called for a conditional sentence or a jail term of 90 days or less to be served intermittently.
In sentencing Fingarsen to 18 months in jail and two years of probation, B.C. Provincial Court Judge Joseph Galati said there were “essentially no mitigating factors” in her case and a number of aggravating ones, including her breach of two employers’ trust, the long period of time during which she committed her crimes and the negative impact on her victims, including Alpha students.
“She breached the trust of both of her employers, but more so with respect to Alpha Secondary, where, as school bookkeeper, she was entrusted with relatively extensive financial responsibilities,” Galati said. “At Alpha, Ms. Fingarsen defrauded the school but breached the trust of the administrators, teachers and students, who all expected her to do her job honestly. Her actions have impacted all of those groups of people, and I accept that many of them felt betrayed, angry and saddened in the result.”
During her two-year probation period, Fingarsen will not be allowed “to seek or obtain any employment or volunteer in any capacity that involves having authority over the real property, money or valuable security of another person.”
Galati also ordered Fingarsen pay Alpha Secondary back $30,153.88 – the total value of 29 fraudulent cheques Galati said had been proven beyond reasonable doubt to have been deposited in Fingarsen’s account.
In February 2014, Fingarsen had originally pleaded guilty to the two counts of fraud.
At that time, both the Crown and defence lawyers had called for a suspended sentence and a year of probation instead of jail time.
Provincial Court Judge Frances Howard threw out Fingarsen’s guilty plea at sentencing, however, because she said the former bookkeeper had not really acknowledged guilt in the case.
“That is the position [Ms. Fingarsen] continues to maintain, having done so at trial,” Galati said.
