By Andrew Bates | Telegraph-Journal
A woman who worked as an assistant to a former Kelly Cove Salmon manager who ran a copper wire laundering scheme for nine years in New Brunswick has been sentenced to probation for fraud.
Melanie Pirie, 47, of Deer Island, was sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service by Judge Lucie Mathurin Friday in Saint John provincial court. Pirie had pleaded guilty in February to fraud to a copper wire fraud ring that Cooke Aquaculture said cost it $3.2 million between 2012 and 2021.
Pirie had been arrested in August 2022 alongside Patrick Brennan, 59, of Bonny River, Leonard Totten, 51, of Seaside Drive in Back Bay and Andrew Peters, 77, of Highway 175 in Pennfield. The arrests came after Cooke began an internal review into rising costs and eventually reported the suspected fraud to the police, according to an agreed statement of facts read by Crown prosecutor Andrew Pollabauer.
Pollabauer told the court that Brennan worked as an equipment manager for Kelly Cove Salmon, a Cooke subsidiary, with Pirie as his administrative assistant. Between 2012 and 2021, Brennan’s office placed more than 1,500 fraudulent purchases of copper wire, with Brennan approving 79.2 per cent of invoices and Pirie approving 18.4 per cent at Brennan’s direction, Pollabauer said.
Brennan would receive the shipments of copper wire and then have them delivered by himself or Totten, another Kelly Cove employee, to sell them to salvage operator Andrew Peters, Pollabauer said. Brennan would allegedly use the money to buy drugs, which he gave to Pirie and Totten, Pollabauer said.
The cost of the wire amounted to $3.2 million, Pollabauer said, with Pirie’s purchases accounting for about $650,000 of that. The wire was sold to Peters for a sum of about $1.19 million before HST, according to the prosecutor.
Pirie’s main reason for participating in the scheme was “to ensure the continued supply of drugs,” Pollabauer said, and would sometimes buy them from Totten or receive them freely.
Brennan was sentenced to three years in prison and a $100,000 fine in December 2023 and Totten received a two-year conditional sentence in July last year after each pleaded guilty to fraud. Peters pleaded guilty to possessing stolen property and taking copper wire for resale and received a two-year conditional sentence in December with eight months of house arrest and a $84,000 fine.
Probation differs from a conditional sentence in that a probation violation is an offence that can draw a short jail sentence, while a conditional sentence is described as “incarceration in the community” and a defendant can be sent to jail for some or all of the remaining term if the sentence is revoked.
The defence was a joint recommendation by Crown and defence. Pollabauer said the Crown’s reasoning was based on parity with the other sentences and Pirie’s “level of blameworthiness” related to Peters. He noted that the judge in Totten’s sentencing had also found his motive “was not financial gain.”
“They were basically being preyed upon as a result of their own addiction,” Pollabauer said, saying Brennan was in the position of trust.
The prosecutor said that he wasn’t “making light” of the duration of the offence or the loss to Cooke, and said the Crown would “forcefully suggest” a treatment condition as part of the probation.
“Addiction is the reason why Ms. Pirie engaged in this conduct, and the only way we can make sure this conduct is not going to repeat itself is by ensuring that those (issues) are properly treated,” Pollabauer said. “The Crown wouldn’t have recommended what it did if it wasn’t satisfied that she’s been living a sober life since then.”
Mathurin asked if it would be acceptable to add community service hours to the sentence, given that recovering restitution would be unlikely, and Pollabauer agreed.
Pirie’s lawyer Charles Bryant said Brennan’s position of trust and the length of the scheme gave it a “veneer of legitimacy” for his subordinates. That doesn’t “shield” his client from moral blameworthiness, Bryant said, but “it certainly attenuates it” to the point where probation is appropriate.
He endorsed the community service order, calling it an “underutilized” sentencing tool. He said in the years since her arrest, Pirie, who had no criminal record, had gone through positive change, had family support and was interested in counselling.
Bryant said his client could have benefitted from a conditional discharge, but it wasn’t available for a charge of this type. Mathurin said that she was “not ready to address” the notion of whether it would have been appropriate.
Mathurin told Pirie the sentence “does not excuse your involvement,” saying when things seem too good to be true, they are, but added that Brennan having been her employer put Pirie in an “uncomfortable” position. She said it resulted in a “huge loss” to Cooke, where she had worked for almost 20 years.
“They trusted you,” she said. “You not certainly did suffer not only by losing your job but you ended up with a criminal infraction.”
The judge said that she was “quite surprised” by the joint recommendation but saw no reason to reject it, noting that Pirie’s guilty plea prevented a long trial as well as her level of involvement. She said the “great steps” she’d taken to fight her addiction were the “only reason” that the deal would have been reached.
Pirie said she did have a job but would be able to serve the hours of community service by January. The 12-month supervised probation sentence also came with orders to take treatment as directed and abstain from drugs and alcohol as well as a $200 victim fine surcharge order.
Charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, possession of property obtained by crime and laundering proceeds of crime against Pirie were withdrawn after the sentence.
