A woman found guilty of transferring more than $83,000 in camping payments to her personal account was placed under house arrest and was ordered to pay back the former company she worked for, a report said.
Crown prosecutor Wes Beatty had earlier argued before Justice Bonnie Oldham at the Parry Sound Court that Sandra Weatherall, 45, from Parry Sound, must spend between 20 to 24 months in prison. She also said she must pay back the money in order to stop others from stealing from their employers.
The attorney representing Weatherall, Ben Prichard, had suggested to the court to consider the possibility of a one-year house arrest and probation, with the requirement to pay $500 per month.
On October 4th, Justice Oldham imposed a sentence of 18 months of house arrest, followed by three years of probation, and an order to pay back the money in full by the end of the 54 months.
The house indictment “is meant to be jail,” Oldham warned Weatherall in a statement, explaining that Weatherall must serve the sentence in jail in the event that she fails to follow the guidelines.
The court was told that from February 2018 to June 2019, Weatherall took $83,941.43 from her employer in McKellar. The thefts were discovered after Weatherall presented her husband with the list of money she had transferred and he contacted her employer.
The company, which also runs a campground in Muskoka was “forced to deal with angry campers wanting to know if they had paid and asked to verify their payments. Staff were pulled from one campground and asked to cover for the RV park. She reported being overwhelmed with the accounting and reconciliation process and experienced feelings of loss of trust in her employees as a result of Miss Weatherall’s actions,” Oldham read her decision to the court.
With $6,000 of restitution held in trust by her defense, Weatherall is left with $77,941.31 to pay in monthly installments before the completion of her probation.