The woman at the centre of a civil suit launched by the Burnaby school district is now facing two criminal counts of fraud.
Jodi Fingarsen, whom the district alleged stole up to $100,000 from school coffers, was charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000 in February.
The Burnaby school district contacted RCMP about the case and filed a separate civil claim last June.
Burnaby RCMP spokesperson Cpl. David Reid said police recommended a number of charges against Fingarsen. The Crown approved two, and one is related to Altus Group, a real estate company.
While the Burnaby school district's civil claim alleges Fingarsen took $100,000, Reid indicated the amount was lower.
"They're looking at an approximation of $60,000," Reid said. "More of an exact number should come out in the course of the trial."
Reid also said that civil cases tend to follow the criminal trials.
"The civil trial looks to see what happening the criminal case first," he said. "A civil trial does not require the (beyond a reasonable doubt) standard of evidence a criminal trial does."
According to the school district's civil claim, Fingarsen, a former bookkeeper at Alpha Secondary, allegedly defrauded the district of $100,000 over a period of three years, mainly by cashing fraudulent cheques.
The claim also alleges that Fingarsen "fraudulently converted, for her own use and for her own benefit, various amounts of cash received from numerous sources as a result of fundraising activities, donations, student fees and fees for field trips, etc."
The school district also named CIBC and Vancity as defendants in the suit. Vancity was the drawee bank, and Fingarsen had at least one personal account with CIBC. The claim alleges CIBC honoured some of the cheques with a forged endorsement or no endorsement at all.
None of the allegations have been proven in court. No one from Altus Group would comment on the case.
