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Threats, bribe kept fraud going, court told
By SARAH ELIZABETH BROWN
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

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The welfare program co-ordinator in the thick of a fraud case at Fort William First Nation said Monday it was easier to keep the scheme going than to walk away or report it to her boss.
Testifying at her Superior Court sentencing, Shirley Mae Allan, 47, said even when she stayed away from the office for weeks at a time on leave, people showed up at her home, pressuring her to come back.
“What does it take to say ’I quit‘ and walk out of the office,” asked prosecutor Dan Mitchell.
Allan said she tried, but people kept coming to her home and telling her to return.
“You could have just said no couldn‘t you?” Mitchell continued.
“It wasn‘t that easy,” said Allan, adding later it was simply easier to keep up the fraud.
She told Justice Patrick Smith she received numerous threats and a bribe after she went to police with files she took from the band‘s social assistance office that outlined the frauds.
In total, $1.3 million in bogus Ontario Works cheques were cashed by various people involved.
Allan said that after she went to police, a man she didn‘t recognize pushed her down her home‘s front steps and told her to stop talking.
She also testified a second unknown man showed up on her doorstep and offered her $175,000 in cash if she didn‘t testify. She didn‘t take the money and hasn‘t seen the man since, she testified.
Allan said she told both men the case was too far along to stop.
Her sentencing hearing is to resume April 8.

Allan, of Nicickousemenecaning First Nation near Fort Frances where she now lives, pleaded guilty in January to fraud over $5,000, possessing stolen property – the documents she took to police – and breach of trust by a public officer by falsifying records, issuing fraudulent benefit cheques and receiving money through those frauds.
She was Fort William Ontario Works administrator from 2000 to December 2002, though she started work as a welfare caseworker there in 1994.
Her first recollection of a fraud was before she took over as program administrator. She said the then-chief‘s wife pressured her into issuing cheques to an ineligible person.
Allan testified the chief‘s wife told her that as an outsider, she could be fired, and that she thought the wife had influence.
She said the number of fraudulent cheques grew because she was intimidated into perpetuating the scheme.
When she started work there, the caseload was about 70. By 2002 when she left, it was about 500 for an on-reserve population of between 600 and 700 people.
In some cases, false client files were created by residents submitting fraudulent supporting documents.
Some cheques were cut for people who didn‘t actually live on the reserve or who didn‘t qualify financially, while others were created in the names of people who didn‘t exist, were in jail or who didn‘t know their names were being used.
Some cheques were made out to trustees authorized to collect and cash the cheques for named individuals, and some old cases were reactivated fraudulently.
Allan testified she helped to create social assistance files so three of her children, her two sisters and a brother-in-law could receive cheques, which totalled about $6,000. Allan said she‘s paid that money back.
Mitchell pointed out she wouldn‘t have received the same inside pressure to help her relatives because they weren‘t members of the community.
After two years, Allan said, she wanted out. She befriended Walter Paul Bannon and explained what was going on.
“He said he would help me, but I had to help him out as well,” said Allan, who has admitted to helping Bannon access the scheme.
In 2003, Bannon went to police with the documents Allan took from the First Nation offices.
He has pleaded guilty for his part in the scheme and received a two-year conditional sentence plus an order to pay back almost $47,000 from 56 cheques.
It took six interviews with police for Allan to tell investigators what she knew.
Allan said Monday she didn‘t tell police everything at first because she felt ashamed and because “I didn‘t really know what I was getting into . . . what I should say, who I should tell on.”
A preliminary hearing for 10 other people charged in the case is to start March 17 at the former adult education centre on Balmoral Street, which has been renovated to handle the large number of accused, their lawyers and the huge number of documents to be tendered as exhibits.
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