Third man ensnared in bogus cheque-cashing scheme
Fraudsters targeted homeless men to cash cheques for them
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Published Friday, October 10, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A third man ensnared in a scheme targeting street people to cash bogus cheques has been sentenced to one day in jail, a year's probation and 50 hours of community service.
Joshua Clark, 31, was sentenced by Judge Christine Gagnon in territorial court Wednesday. He was found guilty of uttering a forged document after a trial by judge alone back in July.
The punishment was in accordance with the penalty sought by Crown prosecutor Mark Feldthusen and defence lawyer Jay Bran.
During his trial, the court heard Clark had received a cheque for $3,852.96 in October 2013 from two men who had approached him on the street.
Clark said one of the men told him he was unable to cash the cheque because he was from Seattle. He testified that the men offered him $300 to cash the cheque.
The cheque was forged to appear as a payroll cheque from Shell Energy Canada.
The court heard Clark tried unsuccessfully to cash the cheque at CIBC and then at Money Mart.
The manager of Money Mart at the time testified Clark became agitated when she asked him some routine questions. He left the store without the cheque.
Gagnon ruled that Clark must have known the cheque was fake even if he was, in some sense, taken advantage of by the strangers who offered to pay him. Bran told the court Clark was homeless at the time of the offence.
"He wasn't the mastermind behind this crime. Others were orchestrating this and they were preying on people in desperate need of money," said Bran.
Clark has since found a place to live and has more stability in his life than he had when the crime was committed, said Bran.
The offender had significant issues growing up not of his own making and he's been fending for himself since his mother died in 2006, Bran told the court.
Gagnon noted that Clark is a vulnerable person who has faced many challenges. She also pointed out that in this case there was no loss of money to the business involved.
Gagnon said Clark's day in court counts as his one day in jail. She did, however, order him to receive counselling while on probation.
Clark had pleaded not guilty to the charge claiming he had no knowledge that the cheque was fake, said Bran. Clark is one of at least three people in Yellowknife caught up in the scam believed to have been orchestrated by the same culprits.
Bran said all three cases seem to be related as the description of the two strangers was the same in each case.
The other two Yellowknife men, both homeless, successfully cashed cheques.
They too received one day in jail and were ordered to pay back $6,800 and $7,277 respectively.
It's believed the scammers themselves were never caught.
RCMP Sgt. Marc Coulombe stated in an e-mail that police did not issue a public warning about the scam artists because they did not want to tip them off that police were on to them.
