Port Coquitlam city hall. Photograph By CITY OF PORT COQUITLAM
A former Port Coquitlam city employee will be sentenced in May for taking about $175,000 from the municipality over a three-year period.
Today (Tuesday), Dean McIntosh pleaded guilty to one charge of false pretence over $5,000 — an indictable offence that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years behind bars.
The 51-year-old PoCo resident was at the PoCo courthouse with his lawyer, Archie Kaario, and spoke only to confirm his admission before Judge Shehni Dossa.
She ordered a pre-sentence report for his May 18 hearing, which is expected to take an hour, Kaario said.
Crown Counsel Lori Ashton told The Tri-City News afterward it’s undecided at this time what will happen to McIntosh’s other charges of theft and fraud over $5,000 (the false pretence charge was sworn on March 8 while the first two charges were sworn last December).
McIntosh stole about $175,000 from taxpayers by using a city-issued credit card he had for his employment as a facility maintenance co-ordinator — and through the city’s purchasing system — to buy tools and small machines.
The city said McIntosh then resold the items through a third-party broker, between April 2014 and October 2016.
McIntosh confessed to stealing the cash after a co-worker approached senior managers, the city added; he showed them how he did it, returned the cash in full and resigned his position.
In an emailed statement this morning to The Tri-City News, Mayor Greg Moore said of McIntosh’s guilty plea, “This was a very distressing situation for everyone involved and council felt the right thing to do was have it dealt with by the police and courts as it was a criminal matter.”
Moore continued, “We know the community places its trust in us and we take that seriously. To make sure this doesn’t happen again, we’ve undertaken an independent review of the situation and have now put in place a number of measures, including a whistleblower policy, fraud awareness training and stricter purchasing approvals."
