A former provincial executive who took more than $600,000 from provincial coffers and funnelled most of it to his own bank account will learn his fate on Friday.
Lloyd George Carr pleaded guilty to a single count of fraud in February and was to be sentenced Monday, but sentencing submissions ran longer than expected. Justice Mary Moreau postponed her decision until Friday afternoon.
Carr was an executive director with the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, (AADAC) and funnelled government funds through outside organizations and into his own bank account.
Crown prosecutor Greg Lepp told the court he was seeking a sentence of between three and five years, while Carr’s defence lawyer Daryl Royer is asking the court to consider house arrest.
Carr first came under suspicion in 2006 when AADAC staff noticed something amiss with five contracts in which he was involved. Staff forwarded their concerns to the auditor general, who uncovered the full extent of Carr’s fraud.
The first contract was to the group Action on Smoking and Health that worked to promote a St. Albert anti-smoking bylaw in 2004. Carr approached the group and suggested they use a public relations consultant to promote the proposed bylaw. He provided $10,000 in funds from AADAC, who at Carr’s direction, passed it on to the consultant.
The consultant was named Deborahh “Corr” and shared the same St. Albert address as Carr and his wife Deborah. The funds were eventually deposited into the couple’s account.
After the first deception, Carr initiated four more contracts all with the Lung Association of Alberta related to a proposed campaign to prevent high school smoking. In each case Carr handed the money to the Lung Association and instructed them pass it along after taking a portion to outside consultants, with the amounts slowly escalating.
At first Carr used Kilburn and Associates, who would then hand it over to Deborah Corr, but Kilburn was eventually replaced with a company called Out of the Box Consulting, which was actually a front for Carr. He told his supervisors at AADAC the Lung Association was working on the anti-smoking campaign and he told the Lung Association it was being used for capacity building and billboards.
Lepp argued for a tough sentence for Carr because he was a high-ranking government official put in a position of trust. Lepp said Carr had used legitimate organizations to cover his tracks.
AADAC lost $634,250 to the five phony contracts. After payments to the Lung Association and Kilburn, Carr pocketed $481,413.
Lepp said while the scam was ongoing Carr was netting the equivalent of $530 per day tax-free and it was complex enough that it might have gone unnoticed. “If it hadn’t been for the people at AADAC noticing that something was amiss, this may never have come to light.”
Carr was suspended from AADAC soon after the auditor general’s report and has since moved to Swann River, Man.
He settled a lawsuit with the provincial government for $375,000, selling his St. Albert home to pay those costs.
Royer said Carr had already suffered from the fraud, losing a promising career.
“He will never obtain the respect from his peers that he once enjoyed.”
Carr is now working as a house painter, but Royer said he hoped to return to counselling.
Royer said Carr suffered from a gambling addiction, which is why he stole the money.
Lepp disputed the seriousness of that addiction, noting it only surfaced after Carr initially blamed others, pointing a finger at one of his supervisors and claiming the money was secretly funnelled into the leadership campaign of then-PC leadership candidate Jim Dinning.
Carr addressed the court briefly, apologizing and saying he had spent the time since his arrest becoming closer to God. “I do take responsibility for my actions. The last two-and-a-half years have been an opportunity to grow.”
The sentence will be handed down Friday at 1 p.m.
