Jail ordered for ex-civil servant who took $460K

A former Saskatchewan civil servant with a compulsive gambling habit has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for defrauding the province of more than $400,000.

On Friday,  Regina Queen's Bench Justice Ellen Gunn  sentenced Brenda Oates, 50, to serve the time at a provincial correctional centre. The judge also ordered her to pay back almost all of the money taken.

Oates, a former office manager with Saskatchewan Environment, had been hoping for a conditional sentence, with no jail time.

Her lawyer, Cam McCannell, said it was tough for Oates to hear she would be going to jail.

"It's like getting hit between the eyes with a sledgehammer," he said.

Court heard Oates set up an elaborate scheme to steal money from Saskatchewan Environment. As the office manager for the New Resource Stewardship Branch, she had control over office accounts.

She stole $460,520.62 by creating 501 false invoices, and approximately 50 fake vendors, to get 403 government cheques.

Oates funnelled the stolen money through the accounts of charitable organizations she volunteered with, including the Queen City Kinsmen Gymnastics Club, the Gymnastics Club of Regina, Inc., and the O'Neill High School Student Travel Club. Court was told she didn't steal any money from the organizations.

She stole the money over a 4½-year period, beginning in 1999, to feed what was described in court as a pathological gambling addiction. Much of the money was spent at Casino Regina.

Oates was charged three years ago and pleaded guilty to fraud in February.

Crown prosecutor Greg Fellinger had been asking for Oates to serve two years less a day, but said he was not disappointed by the sentence.

"The sentence does go some distance to addressing general deterrence and denunciation," he said. "It was a careful and well-thought-out judgment rendered and I'm satisfied to that extent."

Oates has already repaid $200,000 of the money she took, and she still has to pay back $234,000.

Last August, Oates's sister, Linda Billey, was ordered to repay more than $26,000 after pleading guilty to defrauding the Saskatchewan government.

Billey was charged in 2005 for her role in the same scheme Oates was involved in.

Billey, who was not a government employee, was put on probation for 18 months.