Since early 1999, Kimberly Rogers was one of only 10 people in the former Region of Sudbury who had their files forwarded to police on suspicion of welfare fraud.
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While there have been about 1,500 Â?overpaymentsÂ? resulting in administrative paybacks from clients to social services from early 1999 to the present day, welfare fraud is not as common as some people believe.
The jury at the inquest into the death of Rogers, heard of the 10 people charged with defrauding more than $5,000, seven have been convicted, including Rogers, and three other cases are pending.
What punishment the other six received was not revealed at a coronerÂ?s inquest Friday.
Carmen Marleau-Woitowich, a eligibility requirement officer for Sudbury Social Services, which administers the Ontario Works program, testified late last week.
Marleau-Woitowich confirmed the city was clawing back 10 per cent of the $520 monthly welfare cheque Rogers collected. She had welfare cut off after being convicted for welfare fraud April 25, 2001, but benefits were reinstated by a Toronto judge one month later.
Rogers received $468 a month in benefits. Her rent was $450, which left her $18 a month to live on.
Rogers, 40, was sentenced to six months of house arrest after pleading guilty to theft over $5,000 for collecting $14,000 in welfare while on student loans between 1996 and the fall of 1999.
Rogers was eight months pregnant when her badly decomposed body was found in her apartment during a blistering heat wave.
The inquest has heard Rogers died from an overdose of amitriptyline, prescibed to fight depression and prevent migraine headaches.
Rogers suffered from chronic depression, migraine headaches, panic attacks, insomnia and physical pain following 1997 knee surgery.
Marleau-Woitowich said her office recommends whether someone convicted of welfare fraud should have to pay back between the minimum of five per cent and maximum of 10 per cent from future benefits.
In the case of Rogers, it was deemed appropriate a 10 per cent repayment begin once benefits were reinstated, she said.
Â?It was our opinion there was intent and she went out of her way to defraud,Â? she said.
The repayment claw back was later reduced to five per cent for a couple of months before Rogers died.
The provincial government implemented a Â?zero tolerance policyÂ? for welfare fraud that included a lifetime ban if caught cheating in April, 2001.
Rogers was caught in the fall of 1999, only a few weeks after the province instituted a software program to cross-reference people collecting welfare and student loans, said Marleau-Woitowich.
She discovered Rogers had been attending Cambrian College full-time since the fall of 1996, while collecting welfare benefits at the same time, she said.
The first step taken is to suspend the clientÂ?s social assistance benefits, she said.
A calculation is then made to determine how much welfare money was overpaid.
Rogers received just under $33,000 in student loans, while collecting $13,500 in welfare between 1996 and 1999.
All social assistance overpayments under $5,000 are handled Â?in houseÂ? with clients expected to pay back all the money without any other agency being contacted.
But files from clients caught cheating the system of more than $5,000 are automatically reported to police, said Marleau-Woitowich.
The file for Rogers was turned over to Sudbury police in the fall of 1999 and she was charged in late September.
She never met Rogers, but was in court the day she pleaded guilty, said Marleau-Woitowich.
In earlier testimony, it was revealed two months before she died, Rogers went to a second pharmacy after she was denied a three-month supply of anti-depressant prescription pills.
Pharmacist Charles Hartleib testified Rogers visited him June 15, 2001 with a prescription for 540 tablets of amitriptyline.
Hartleib testified he wouldnÂ?t fill the prescription because the daily dosage had been increased from 250 to 300 milligrams.
Instead, he gave Rogers a 10-day supply of 60 pills and told her to return a few days later once she had tried the increased dosage, said Hartleib.
The inquest has heard 300 milligrams is the maximum daily dosage handed out by pharmacists in Ontario.
After getting turned down for the full prescription, Rogers phoned a second pharmacy and tried to get it filled over the phone.
However, pharmacist Terry Bristow checked her drug plan records and discovered Rogers had visited the first pharmacy earlier that day.
He refused to hand over any amitriptyline pills, but did fill a prescription for pain medicine, said Bristow.
Rogers had stockpiled more than 1,300 50-milligram amtriptyline pills between late May and the time of her death in early August 2001.
Her doctor prescribed six pills at bed each night for a total daily dosage of 300 milligrams and warned her repeatedly not to exceed this number.
The attempt to fill the three-month prescription June 15 came only three weeks after she had filled another prescription for 270 pills on May 22.
Despite being turned down, Rogers returned three days later and successfully acquired 180 amitriptyline pills, said Hartleib.
RogersÂ? doctor, Robert Clendenning, testified he continued to write early prescriptions for Rogers worried her drug benefits would be cut off by the Tory government.
Hartleib testified he also caught Rogers altering a prescription for Tylenol in the fall of 1999.
He warned her not to do it again and marked all future prescriptions warning his staff Rogers had been caught doctoring prescriptions.
Â?She was confronted and told of the seriousness and that it was a criminal offence,Â? said Hartleib.
Â?I put a note to alert other pharmacists that this had happened.Â?
Pharmacists in Ontario have no duty or responsibility to share information on clients with other pharmacists or doctors, said Hartleib.
Â?Things break down if a person goes to another pharmacy,Â? he said.
Amitriptyline is one of the most common anti-depressant medications on the market, he said.
ItÂ?s effective, inexpensive and isnÂ?t known to contain any addictive qualities, he said.
Of the many clients who regularly use amitriptyline, Rogers was the only one who regularly filled prescriptions for a daily dose of 300 milligrams, said Hartleib.
While pharmacists arenÂ?t required to share any patient information with doctors or other pharmacists in Ontario, thatÂ?s not the case in British Columbia, said Bristow.
Pharmacists in that province have easy access to a province-wide computer system that provides detailed client information on what drugs are used, when they are prescribed, how often they are accessed, what they cost and whether a client has attempted fraud in the past, said Bristow.
The inquest continues Monday.
