A former employee of the city of Port Coquitlam sentenced last year for stealing about $175,000 from the municipality admitted Thursday to breaching conditions of his sentence.
Dean McIntosh, 53, pleaded guilty to two offences — visiting a casino and staying out past his curfew — before PoCo provincial court Judge Shehni Dossa.
McIntosh apologized for his actions, telling Dossa during the 10-minute hearing, “I do assure the court it won’t happen again.”
Dossa agreed to the Crown and defence lawyers’ submission that no additional penalty be imposed against McIntosh, who is serving an 18-month conditional sentence order.
The judge gave credit to McIntosh for his guilty pleas but reminded him sentence is a jail term being served in the community.
The court heard McIntosh was depressed at the time of the breaches in January: He had stopped taking his medication and attending counselling sessions; he had split from his common-law partner in Nanaimo, who had changed the locks to their home; and he was grieving over the loss of his mother.
“He had a lot going on,” McIntosh's lawyer told the court. “He reached out to his old staple: gambling.”
Still, he said McIntosh, a cocaine addict, has been clean since October 2016, has been working at a stable in the Fraser Valley as a maintenance worker and has plans to move in with his 18-year-old son.
Last year, McIntosh pleaded guilty to one charge of false pretence over $5,000 after he took about $175,000 from the city over a three-year period. He bought tools and small machines by using a city credit card and through the city's purchasing system, then resold the items through a third-party broker between April 2014 and October 2016, the city stated.
McIntosh confessed to thefts when confronted by city managers after a co-worker tipped them. He showed the managers how he took the funds, returned the stolen money in full and resigned his position as a facility maintenance co-ordinator.
