'Like someone took the truck off my back': Insurance covers nearly $300K stolen from community club

More than a year after their treasurer pleaded guilty to stealing $292,000 from the St. Andrews Community Club, board members have received an insurance cheque recouping nearly all the stolen money.

"I never thought I'd say this. It's like someone took the truck off my back," said Rob Ataman, president of the community club in the rural municipality north of Winnipeg.

Last week, Ataman says the club received a cheque for $291,500 — the full amount that volunteer treasurer Sharon Wasny pleaded guilty to stealing, minus a $500 deductible.

Wasny, then 53, pleaded guilty in March 2017 to ongoing theft from the community club between 2005 and 2012.

During her trial, court heard that Wasny wrote cheques from the community club's credit union account to pay $208,000 in personal credit card bills, used a community club credit card to steal another $77,000 and wrote two cheques for $7,000, which she deposited into her personal account.

Wasny — who operated her own accounting business — used the money to pay personal business expenses and to finance a luxury lifestyle that included thousands of dollars in hairstyling and jewelry purchases, and multiple trips to Vancouver to watch Canucks games, court heard.

Last November, Wasny was sentenced to 15 months in jail.

"I don't think I've ever had so many emotions go through my body at once," Ataman said of the sentencing. "I just about jumped out of my chair to the ceiling."

'Extraordinary group of people'

Ataman said the board has passed the cheque on to the rural municipality of St. Andrews, because it was the RM's insurance company that covered the theft. The RM will cash it and then write a cheque in return to the club, he said.

The club had previously owed the RM just over $100,000 for the construction of all-new dressing rooms, Ataman said, and the cheque allows them to pay it back and be officially debt-free.

The remaining funding will go toward a number of projects, Ataman said, including replacing the aging Zamboni, heating the seats around the hockey rink and insulating the building and cladding it in tin to bring down the cost of running it.

"We have an extraordinarily happy board right now," he said.

Club administrators started looking into the club's finances in 2012 after receiving a call from Manitoba Hydro about months of unpaid bills. The RCMP launched its own investigation and arrested Wasny in 2015.

Ataman said the investigation and the uncertainty was difficult for him and the rest of the board, who he called "an extraordinary group of people."

"Those people went through a hell of a lot, as you can imagine," he said.

"You're accusing people that live in the neighbourhood, that you live with side-by-side, and they took a lot of heat as a board. They could have all just very well quit and just let the community club disappear."

Ataman said there are still some "holes" in the club's books, suggesting more money may have been stolen. He believes someone other than Wasny may have been responsible.

The RCMP is not currently investigating the theft, he said. The board hasn't decided if and how it will pursue the matter further.

"We've been given this job — it's a volunteer job, none of us get paid to take care of it," he said. "And now we have to make a decision if we should spend some more money to see if we can recover more money."