Leader staff
On May 31, 2023, Cindy Martin was sentenced to two years in jail for embezzlement.
From December 11, 2018 to April 13, 2020, Martin wrote cheques to herself from a Northern Lakes College (NLC) staff professional development fund. She worked in administration in the Slave Lake campus of the college for about 12 years. She stole $285,000 from the fund. She did this with 131 cheques of between $500 and $5,000. At one point, Martin was on the union committee which oversaw the fund. At the time of the crimes, she had moved into management and no longer had official access to the fund.
The chequebook was in a locked cabinet in the office she worked in, the court heard. She broke in to forge the cheques.
Martin stopped when the last cheque bounced, said Crown prosecutor Terrance Hudson. It bounced because the fund was empty. However, she then defrauded Slave Lake Winks of the amount of that final cheque, which was $1,950.
The cheques required double signatures, said Hudson. Therefore, she forged the signatures of four of her colleagues.
Two of these colleagues wrote victim impact statements, with one writing for the other two. Other victims were the staff who paid union fees into the fund and could no longer use it to pay for professional development. The college has agreed to waive the fees for NLC courses, but used to be paid tuition out of the fund.
Martin pleaded guilty on July 27, 2022 in Slave Lake Provincial Court (since renamed Court of Justice). Sentencing was set for January 4, 2023, but various factors delayed it. In the meantime, she had hired lawyer Lisa Trach.
Trach told the court Martin has no criminal record. She had worked very hard and had a house and a car and was the main caregiver for her child, whose father lives in another community.
Then one night, Trach said, adding a bit of drama to the narrative, Martin went to the bar and met a guy. She started using cocaine and gambling. Now all she has is debt.
Defense and prosecution did not agree on sentence. Hudson asked for 24 months plus a day of federal custody. Trach recommended 18 to 24 months to be served in the community as a conditional sentence order. However, she added that if the sentence had to be served in jail, Martin would prefer a federal sentence of 24 months or more.
Hudson and Trach agreed substance abuse and other programs in federal prison are better than in provincial jail.
Aggravating factors in the case were the amount of money, duration (the length the crime took), the number of victims and the breach of trust. Hudson and Trach agreed that $285,000 was a lot of money and that Martin breached trust with her colleagues.
They disagreed on the other two. Hudson considered 17 months as a long time.
“A year and a half is not that long in these circumstances,” said Trach. Her reasoning was that as an addict, Martin would have had some savings to blow through before she started stealing the NLC fund money. Trach contrasted this with someone who stole money, but were not in financial need, often over five or more years.
Another difference had to do with sophistication. Hudson considered forging colleagues’ signatures and taking the chequebook home during the COVID-19 pandemic sophisticated. Trach did not.
“This isn’t about whether she’s going to get caught,” said Trach. “It’s when she’ll be caught.”
On May 31 in Slave Lake Court of Justice, Justice S.P. Hinkley sentenced Martin to 24 months for fraud over $5,000 and two concurrent sentences. For forging a document, she received 180 days. She received 10 days concurrent for fraud under $5,000 and was ordered to repay Winks $1,950. Having no money, Martin did not receive any victim fine surcharges. After she leaves jail, she is prohibited from having a job or volunteering in any capacity in which she has control over someone else’s assets.
