BY KEITH LACEY
A former plant manager with the Rainbow District School Board will find out next Thursday whether or not he?s going to jail after admitting to stealing $308,000 from the board.
Allan Spisak, 43, quit his job of 12 years with the board after being confronted with fraud allegations last April.
Spisak pleaded guilty in March to conspiring with another man on a complicated scheme in which school board invoices and work orders were paid out to a fictitious company formed by Spisak and his accomplice.
A total of 87 false work orders and 78 false invoices billed to the school board by Spisak?s fictitious company were revealed through a forensic audit.
Steven Fleming is also facing fraud charges .
Spisak pleaded guilty to charges that between September 2000 and May 2003, he was involved in defrauding the school board of $308,000.
Spisak left Sudbury for southern Ontario after quitting his job, but turned himself over to Greater Sudbury Police soon after police decided to lay
charges following a nine-month forensic audit.
On Thursday, assistant Crown attorney Andrew Slater asked the court to sentence Spisak to 15 months in jail. He said the crime was a complicated scheme involving big dollars where the accused abused his position of trust and stole public money.
Defence counsel Richard Pharand said Spisak has no criminal record, has repaid $20,000 and will repay an additional $80,000. He asked for a conditional sentence because his client is of little risk to reoffend. Spisak had always intended to plead guilty and didn?t originally speak to police based on his legal advice, said Pharand.
Spisak has done very well since moving down south running two successful businesses and he?s more than willing to pay restitution in the amount of $100,000, said Pharand.
Slater admitted ?this is not an easy case to deal with,? but said a jail sentence is almost always imposed when a fraud of the public purse involves a lot of money and a sophisticated scheme where an abuse of trust has occurred.
Most people who commit frauds of this nature suffer from financial difficulties or there are extenuating circumstances such as drugs or alcohol
involved, but that?s not the case in this matter, said Slater. A pre-sentence report confirms Spisak came from a good family. He worked hard to reach a prestigious position with the school board, where he was being groomed for a management position. In the end, Spisak felt he wasn?t being
properly compensated for his hard work and somehow deserved the money derived from the fraud scheme, he said.
Other people were involved in this fraud, but it?s clear Spisak was at the centre of the plan and it could not have been carried out without his involvement, said Slater.
Justice Gerald Michel said he wanted to review all submissions and case law before rendering his decision next Thursday.
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