SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Yellowknife woman who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $180,000 from her employer to feed a gambling addiction will have to wait in jail until Friday to find out her sentence.

"Everything we've worked so hard for has been ripped away," said Paulette Ollerhead, the wife of Varick Ollerhead, president and CEO of the Yellowknife-based Ollerhead and Associates Ltd. in a victim impact statement read in territorial court on Monday.

Dionne Bowden, 35, the company's former administrative assistant, pleaded guilty on Feb. 1 to stealing a total of $181,541.24 between Aug. 5, 2008, and Dec. 29, 2009, by forging Varick Ollerhead's name on 49 cheques and her office manager's name on three more cheques, said Crown prosecutor Blair MacPherson. One of the cheques was payable to CIBC Visa in the amount of $6,500 and three more were made payable and cashed by the Toronto law firm Kronis, Rotsztain, Margles and Cappel in the amount of $12,422. The remaining amount was made payable to Bowden and deposited into her Yellowknife bank account.

MacPherson noted that Bowden didn't have cheque signing authority with the company.

For what he described as an "immense fraud" comprising "one of the largest amounts seen in the NWT," MacPherson said an appropriate sentence based on similar cases was a jail term in the range of 14-17 months and one year of probation. He said the Crown wasn't seeking to have the stolen amount repaid because Bowden had already been successfully sued by Ollerhead for the amount stolen. However, MacPherson noted that Bowden hasn't paid any of the money back and criticized her for not having a repayment plan. Court records confirm that restitution was ordered on July 2, 2010 by the Supreme Court of the NWT, following the civil suit.

Bowden's lawyer Jay Bran told territorial court deputy judge Robert Bourassa that his client didn't spend the money on fancy clothes, jewelry, cars or vacations. Instead, the money was spent on a gambling addiction that forced her to "dig herself out of the hole she found herself in."

Bran recommended that Bowden be given an 18-month conditional sentence to be served in the community as she is a first-time offender. The first 12 months would be "house arrest" with four hours a week set aside for personal errands. For the remaining six months, Bran suggested a curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and that Bowden be sentenced to perform 180 hours of community service. Bran said a structured conditional sentence could allow his client to continue receiving treatment from the Salvation Army for her gambling addiction.

During Bran's sentence recommendations, Paulette Ollerhead repeatedly shook her head in disgust.

Bourassa said he needed time to review the submissions. He adjourned sentencing until Friday at 9:30 a.m.

"I hate dragging it out, but it's a difficult case," he said.

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