A 64-year-old woman was sentenced Thursday to two years in jail for stealing more than $350,000 from her employer while working as an office manager in Prince George.
Defence counsel had been seeking a conditional sentence order for Debra Velma Penttila, which would have allowed her to serve the term at home.
But provincial court judge Michael Gray found her circumstances were no more exceptional than others who were sentenced to jail for committing the same crime.
However, he did reduce the term from the three years Crown prosecution had been seeking in acknowledgment of her health issues.
Between November 2004 and February 2011, she used her co-signing authority to alter 166 cheques adding up to $362,740 to make them payable to herself, then spent the money on gambling, the court has heard.
The fraud lasted until year-end accounts had to be reconciled in early 2011 and Penttila realized she could no longer cover up the fraud.
Penttila's counsel, Jason LeBlond, had submitted depression brought on by the stress of caring for a mother suffering from dementia and a husband unable to work due to his own health issues and the death of her father was the cause of her behaviour.
But Crown prosecutor John Neal had noted that in neither of the two psychiatric assessments conducted on her was it said that Penttila was diagnosed with any such trouble.
On Wednesday, counsel for Penttila made a last-minute submission of doctors reports regarding an overdose of Tylenol that forced a trip to the hospital.
Penttila had been found slumped over her desk in what turned out to be her last day on the job and after she wrote what would turn out to be her last cheque related to the fraud.
Gray gave no weight to the submission and noted she was subsequently checked by a psychiatrist who offered no diagnosis of mental health trouble released her from hospital the next day.
Gray also noted that while Penttilla told the authors of the pre-sentence that she knew she was addicted to gambling, she nonetheless chose to continue in her ways rather than seek help and confess her crime.
The judge also noted that while she eventually pleaded guilty to the crime on the eve of a trial and accepted that she is genuinely remorseful, she has made no effort since to pay back what she had stole.
General deterrence - or sending a message to others thinking of committing a similar crime - played a role in Gray's decision.
"The business community here and throughout British Columbia must have the confidence that the courts will punish breaches of trust in a stringent fashion and the public at large must know that a breach of trust will be dealt with severely," Gray said.
Penttila was also issued a restitution order for the $362,740.
