Angry in the Great White North

It would appear that the Suzan Pawlak story is coming to an end:

A guilty plea is expected next month in the case of a former treasurer of the Elgin-Middlesex-London federal Liberal riding association, who is charged with fraud.

Pretrial discussions in the case of Suzan Pawlak, 49, were held Wednesday in judge’s chambers between Justice Edward McGrath, defence lawyer Keli Mersereau and Crown attorney Doug Walker in the Ontario Court of Justice.

Pawlak, who lives in Toronto, did not appear.

While those discussions were not made public, McGrath told the court the case is set to return Jan. 15 for a guilty plea and “probable resolution” to the case. The extra time, he said, was for Pawlak to get her affairs in order.

The court also heard that pre-sentencing reports from both the Crown and the defence are to be prepared.

Pawlak is charged with 42 counts of fraud and uttering forged documents after the local riding association discovered close to $15,000 in financial irregularities while putting together an audit for its 2005 books in January, 2007.

Of course, the only reason this story is of interest was because of the bizarre attempt by David Pretlove, the former director for the Ontario wing of the Liberal Party of Canada to cover up the crime.  Pretlove got in touch with the riding association and offered to use party funds to repay about half of the money that was alleged to have gone missing.  In return, the riding association would agree in writing to drop the matter and not call the police.  This was back in January, and the riding association had already fingered Pawlak as the culprit.

At the time, Suzan Pawlak was working for David Pretlove.

The riding association considered the advice it was getting from the Liberal Party leadership in Ontario, and decided to ignore it and call the police anyway.

What of David Pretlove?  Despite this attempt to use party funds in a manner that seemed inappropriate, and perhaps worse than inappropriate, no action was taken against Pretlove other than some public criticism.  Pretlove left his post in August and, as far as I know, no longer works for the Liberal Party in an official capacity.

So it looks like the Liberal Party has dodged a potentially embarrassing situation.  Had Pretlove written the cheque, and the story had still come out, things would be a lot stickier right now.  The people who run the Liberal Party ought to be profusely thanking the people of the riding association for having wisely decided not to take their advice.

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