EDMONTON – A man who stole $10,000 from his own mother and took hundreds of thousands from strangers was sentenced to one year of house arrest Thursday, June 28, 2007.

Former financial advisor Justin James Fulcher received a conditional sentence under which he must spend 12 months in his home and perform 200 hours of community service. If he breaches the conditional sentence, he will be sent to jail. “You are being punished significantly,” Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Sterling Sanderman said, noting that Fulcher would likely have been released from jail after just six months had he opted to do time behind bars for his crime.

According to the agreed statement of facts, Fulcher got a job with Clarica Financial in December 2001 and started defrauding his clients nearly two years later, in July 2003.

Typically, he would take out loans from clients’ life insurance policies and request that the cheques be delivered to him or to a mailbox he rented at Mailboxes, Etc. He would then forge his client’s signatures and cash the cheques. In all, he defrauded Sun Life financial of $268,948.50.

Fulcher also sold his mother and another client fake GICs, using a pretend Clarica plan called “Sun Family.” He opened a bank account under the corporate Sun Family name and cashed the cheques there.

Adapted from:The Edmonton Journal, June 29, 2007

Tags: Edmonton Journal, In the News