Former soccer treasurer Debbie Judd
to be sentenced in January
Straightforward example of putting a hand
in the cookie jar will have taken police, Crown
and judiciary a full eight years to resolve
David Baines, Vancouver Sun, Nov. 9, 2011
From 1998 until she was caught in 2003, Debbie Judd — while serving as volunteer treasurer of the Richmond Youth Soccer Association — embezzled a total of $204,407 from the organization.
She did it by writing cheques to cash, to herself or her husband (who was not party to the fraud).
“It could hardly be described as a sophisticated fraud,” her lawyer, Les Mackoff, told Richmond Provincial Court judge Patrick Chen on Tuesday afternoon.
Judd earlier pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement. All that remains is for Judge Chen to determine an appropriate sentence, which he has deferred for the time being.
Crown prosecutor Mark Rankin is seeking a prison term of two to three years, followed by three months probation. Mackoff is seeking a conditional sentence of two years less a day, to be served at her family home in Airdrie, Alta. This would allow her to continue to work and pay restitution of $1,000 per month for 156 months, until her retirement.
Mackoff said the embezzlement was clearly an ordeal for the soccer association, but also for his client and her family, who were heavily involved in the soccer community.
He said Judd’s children were subject to taunts on the playing field, and aspersions off the field. Judd’s husband John lost his job as a coach of a women’s college soccer team, and was denied the opportunity to coach professional soccer in Croatia.
Shunned and destitute, John Judd declared bankruptcy and moved the family to Airdrie to find work. Debbie obtained work at the University of Calgary. “The family has fought mightily to establish some sort of life in Alberta,” Mackoff told the court.
So why did she do it? Mackoff said Debbie Judd had no alcohol or gambling problems, nor did she suffer from depression. Her crime began innocently enough, by reimbursing herself for expenses incurred on behalf of the soccer association, then by taking more than she was entitled to. It was easy, he said, because the soccer association had no real oversight over her activities.
Mackoff and Rankin handed Judge Chen the usual binders of case law to support their respective sentencing proposals, but I am less interested in the outcome of the case than I am the extraordinary amount of time it is taking to resolve it. The soccer association reported this matter to the Richmond RCMP economic crimes unit in January 2004. At the time, Cpl. Steve Goss, who headed the unit, told the Richmond News that such investigations could take months because of the complex nature of the material.
However, by October 2005 — some 19 months later — no charges had been laid. In fact, it was not clear that the investigation had even started.
Goss admitted to the News that it was “the first time this kind of investigation has been done by the detachment to my knowledge.”
He said the RCMP’s E-Division commercial crime section was focusing on larger economic crimes that crossed municipal jurisdictions, and was becoming increasingly reluctant to take on smaller cases that were specific to a municipality. “So it’s been left up to the detachments, through the city, to fund these,” he said, adding that he had been trying to obtain a forensic accountant from the federal ministry of “Public Works and Services,” but Ottawa had not yet signed off on the request.
In an interview the following month, Goss admitted he was feeling “uncomfortable” with the delay. “Our clients — the victims — are not happy. They have expressed concern, but we are doing [our] best under the circumstances.”
Within days, he said, the forensic accountant would arrive, then it would take another six to 12 months to complete a charge approval brief for Crown counsel.
That was in November 2005. As events unfolded, the RCMP did not forward its brief to the Crown until 2007, and as often happens, the Crown asked the detachment to do more work on it. It wasn’t until June 2009 — nearly five and a half years after the association reported the crime — that charges were laid.
“The bottom line is the soccer association investigation was a convoluted one and not black and white,” RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Pound told the News.
But was it really that complex? I don’t think so.
There were no offshore elements or cross-border jurisdictional issues. It was not a complex securities or money-laundering matter. It was simply a case of somebody sticking her hand in the cookie jar. Fraud 101.
Ron Parks, perhaps the most storied forensic accountant in B.C., agrees:
“Generally speaking, this type of fraud is rather rudimentary,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “I don’t know the details of this case, but I can’t imagine that it would be terribly complex. It should be something that you could deal with in fairly short order. I have dealt with some embezzlement situations in a matter of weeks.”
Keep in mind, Parks has dealt with police and Crown on numerous occasions. He knows what’s required to prove a criminal case.
In May this year, the case finally went to court. Judd pleaded guilty to one count of theft, but the case was put over to July. By this time, Richmond citizens were getting fed up.
In a letter to the editor of the Richmond Review, Alan Bennett remarked at the “incredible” delay: “I would call it a joke but it’s not funny,” he wrote. “International war criminal cases involving several hundred witnesses are concluded quicker than this. I would suggest starting an investigation into whether sheer incompetence played a roll in this delay or it’s just par for the course, but I don’t have another five years to wait for the answer.”
Come July, the judge was told that a pre-sentence report had not been completed and so he put over the case to Tuesday. I had hoped for a resolution, but no such luck.
Judge Chen asked the parties to reconvene on Nov. 15, with a view to a January sentencing date.
That will make it an even eight years since the crime was first reported. How neat.
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