A Saskatoon welfare administrator who was fired by the province after $1 million was discovered missing has been charged with fraud.
Evelyn Hynes is charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Her lawyer appeared on her behalf at the case’s first court hearing, which took place in a Saskatoon provincial court Monday morning.
The RCMP said the charge was laid following an investigation at the Department of Community Resources and Employment office in Saskatoon.
Police began investigating after a complaint was filed in late 2004.
The government said slightly more than $1 million went missing over a 10-year period.
Hynes, 56, had been a manager in charge of dispensing emergency welfare payments in Saskatoon.
Last month, the government faced pressure over the case after a news report said police had forwarded the file to Crown prosecutors for an opinion on whether charges should be laid and had yet to hear back.
In a report released last year, provincial auditor Fred Wendel detailed how the money disappeared. According to the report, 16 fictitious welfare recipients were created over 12 years ending in 2004.
Just over 900 emergency payments were made to the non-existing people during that time. The money was listed as going toward things such as emergency repairs and travel for funerals, but it all ended up in the same bank account.
Having received background information on Evelyn Hynes (in addition to the published revelation of her criminal record in Newfoundland) from a private source, all I can say is that I hope a substantial jail term awaits. But I’m not optimistic.
SDA flashback Jan, 2005;
As so often happens in these cases, the irony positively drips. Hynes also enjoyed a second paying position, teaching classes at the University of Saskatchewan in poverty. Former President of the Saskatchewan Social Workers Association, her work on “Social Work Ethics and Income Security” was adopted by that association. (Someone may want to be checking over the books there as well.)
Interesting- how professional con artists gravitate towards the federal flunky government for lucrative careers, ain’t it!
Actually davie , she was a Provincial Government employee. But this highlights how horrible the Provincial Government controls are in Saskatchewan. This sort of activity is going on in almost every government department ( Environment, Liquor and Gaming are other examples here in the recent news). I am a Comptroller in the private sector, and all my employees know that if they walked outta here with $20 my department would know about it the next day. How do government departments not have proper controls that it has to get up to $1 million before the alarm bells go off?? I hope she gets major jail time, but by the time she boo-hoos about her VLT addiction or whatever, some bleeding heart judge will give her house arrest!!
how much you wanna bet her previous conviction was for fraud . . .
nice of the government to give her a second chance to steal some really big bucks.
what a slow way to steal, get in with the Federal Liberanos and get right into it a million at a swack.
Paul T makes a good point. How is it possible for over a Million dollars to be taken over a period of years without some discrepancies appears in the annual audits? I am sure some large Accounting firm is getting megabucks to audit this Department each year. I would suggest that they should be called on this oversight as well.
I think it is time for everyone to be held accountable for their actions. If an auditor messes up, they should have to at least explain their actions. I have seen auditors miss hundreds of thousands on a year end audit, yet get off with little or no repromand.
It will be interesting to see what she gets if found guilty of these charges. I certainly hope it is not like the two SK individuals who were found guilty of defauding Sask Crop Insurance of over $700,000 a few years ago. One received a 2 month jail term, along with a 1 year probayion and a fine of $55,000. The other received a suspended sentence. Not bad wages if you can get the work!
Let’s hope that if this woman is guilty, that the sentence fits the crime. I also think that there should be serious “blood letting” take place in the department that allowed this to happen. There really should be no excuse allowed for this type of bureaucratic bungling.
Justice, don’t fail us now!
Justice, don’t fail us now!
…teaching a class at U of S in poverty…
That’s rich…a poverty pimp stealing a million dollars…
What kind of person takes money earmarked for the poor. There has to be a special place in hell for someone like that.
I’m not Canadian but from the U.S. so I’m not familiar with this person, but I am certainly familiar with this type of person. Anyone who steels money earmarked for the poor should do several years of jail time. What a user, but then most liberals are.
Sorry I haven’t been here before. Great blog, and it seems I’ve been missing out.
!?!?!?! I had to double check that post when I first read it… my great aunt is ELLEN HYNES… and she’s the sweetest 78 year old Christian lady you’ve ever met!!!
The ethics of social work indeed! Let’s hope the penalty she pays for stealing less than some of the ADSCAMMERS stole is not lecturing students on ethics and being in by 9:30 on “school” nights! Maybe Grant Devine taught Ms. Hynes ethics?
Making up poor people for gain? Didn’t Jean Chretien invent a street person to have imaginary conversations with for political gain?
Maybe she will be thrown to the wolves, but maybe she has embarrassed enough people in high places and the whole affair will be hushed up. Not! This is the age of the blog, and truth will out.
Socialists get richer, and the poor get poorer.
it’s only in Canada …this is only because we allow and don’t care …we just smoke enother joint and have enother beer and be marry….because who cares …and they know it …those in gov’t.
So what would she do with the million dollars? My guess would be to spend it on such things as clothes, cars, realestate, alcohol, retaurants, vacations etc. All services above provided by companies etc who pay taxes which goes into the government pot. The government then uses the money for such things as welfare for the disadvantaged. So in reality she planned on giving it back anyway. If the poor woman goes to jail then the rest of us fools will have to pay for her being there as she would no longer be able to contribute towards her cell rental and cable tv. That wouldnt be fair would it?
P.S. On second thought, throw her in the klink.
what kind of person steals money from the poor?
Welfare Lawyers
Liberal Governments
Bloated Government Agencies
Jack Layton and wifey- staying in the subsidized housing whilst working for the gubmint.
Tsk Tsk
Only a million. And it took her 10 years?!
Obviously she’s no Liberal.
So my guess would be that, yes, she does stand a remote chance of doing time.
Because she’s not a Liberal.
The problem is that those who suspected something wrong figured someone else would report it as they didn’t want to get involved. Remember how many cheaters got caught when the PO went on strike, and UIC & welfare receivers had to go pick up their cheques in person and produce ID. Many never went. With automatic deposits, scamming is much easier and almost impossible to catch. One punishment for this lady is to make it illegal for her to change her appearance (hairstyle or color) or name or move to a new address. Don’t let her hide in plain sight aka Karyla.
I remember when this story broke and CKOM had a employee from welfare on the air. She was being asked how this could happen for so long and her answer was “there are so many checks that they can’t keep track of them all” (or something like that) I almost spit out my coffee. I have a solution … stop issueing so many dam checks.
Great story, I’m from Alberta and a quite a few people that I talk to is wondering how much of the money ends up in so called sevices. We have a lot of new projects going on. There has been some glitches but with no oppesition it is very hard to get info from the goverment end. I would very much like to see a younger person heading up the AB goverment. We had a person getting 3 contracts to handle waste from three hospitals at $200000.00 apiece just for sighing the papers. Got caught and not a thing was said or done about it. Kind of makes you wonder what we elect these people for, becuase ten to one they have a friend in the office getting there share. merle
Hmmm, I bet she was an Irish Traveller at sometime or another !
,
Another tory holdover bites the dust. Are they all crooks or just a choice few?
Hey….let’s not be too rough on her. what if she had a tough childhood? What if she’s a victim of Residential Schools. What if she’s NDP?
All good reasons to steal and not be punished according to those good “Canadian Values” we hear so much about.
Of course, fraud and theft and all manner of criminality are completely unknown in the private sector.
You would have to be pretty naive to think it’s mere coincidence that these crooks end up in government jobs with access to the public purse. Call me paranoid, but I think Evelyn Hynes and thousands more like her in senior civil service postions are groomed puppets. I assume you are aware Evelyn Hynes was also charged with fraud in the mid-80’s while working in a Newfoundland bank.
We can’t prosecute government flunkies for ripping off the system- it might make people realize how mind-numbingly incompetent that most of our government is.