Junior WPS officer gets house arrest for crimes committed with imprisoned ex-colleague

For the price of a restaurant breakfast, a pack of smokes, can of bear spray and a knife, Matthew Kadyniuk threw away his long-pursued career as a Winnipeg police officer.

Kadyniuk, one of several officers caught up in an undercover investigation that targeted Winnipeg Police Service constable Elston Bostock — who is now in prison — was sentenced Wednesday to two years less a day of house arrest.

“I truly acknowledge my actions were wrong and I have no excuse for them,” said Kadyniuk as he sniffled and held back tears. “I take full responsibility. I’m aware of how my actions have affected the trust the public has in the police service, and for that I am truly sorry… I was placed in a position of trust with the public and that trust was broken.”

Kadyniuk, 34, had pleaded guilty to one count each of theft under $5,000 and breach of trust.

The circumstances of Kadyniuk’s crimes were detailed in an agreed statement of facts previously provided to court.

Bostock, 49, was sentenced to seven years in prison in January. A 22-year veteran of the force, Bostock became the target of an “extensive” internal probe after WPS received multiple reports that he had been associating with people involved in illicit activity and giving them police information.

That investigation led the WPS professional standards unit to set up a sting operation on Oct. 17, 2024. Investigators wired a police cruiser with audio recorders and cameras before calling Kadyniuk and Bostock to a staged vehicle break-in outside a Super 8 Motel on Niakwa Road.

There, they unknowingly met with an undercover RCMP officer who pretended he had just confronted a man trying to break into a vehicle and ripped the suspect’s backpack off of him as he fled.

Investigators watched remotely as Kadyniuk took the bag from the undercover officer and placed it in the trunk of the cruiser. Once back inside the car, Kadyniuk told his partner he wanted to go through the contents of the bag.

Kadyniuk drove a few blocks away and parked the vehicle so the men could access the trunk.

“You’re gonna like what’s in the bag,” Kadyniuk can be heard telling Bostock at one point.

“I was placed in a position of trust with the public and that trust was broken.”

“What you don’t hear is hesitation, you don’t hear the weight of what is happening,” Crown attorney Adam Gingera told Court of King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne. “No one knows what was in Mr. Kadyniuk’s mind and how he was able to commit this offence in such a callous and casual manner.”

Bostock stole cash from the bag and split some with his partner. Kadyniuk took cigarettes. Afterward, the pair met up with two other officers to eat breakfast at a restaurant. They paid the bill using some of the money from the backpack, the statement of facts said.

Kadyniuk drove to his home and he took a knife and bear spray from the trunk inside. He returned to the vehicle and drove away with Bostock.

Throughout the morning, the officers became increasingly suspicious that the incident had, in fact, been a staged test and “continuously discussed whether the call had been legitimate.”

Kadyniuk returned to his home to retrieve the bear spray and knife. They were placed back in the bag, along with the cigarettes.

He also handed Bostock some money, and they talked about how they’d spent only $20. Unbeknownst to them, investigators had already recovered that cash from the restaurant as part of the investigation.

When their shift ended, they took the bag to the WPS East District station and put it in Bostock’s locker.

Sitting in court next to his lawyer, Kadyniuk wiped his eyes with a tissue as he watched a video showing him and Bostock going through the backpack.

“It’s fair to say the fact Mr. Kadyniuk was paired with Mr. Bostock did not set him up for success.”

Kadyniuk had been a police officer for just two years at the time of the incident.

While it was Kadyniuk’s decision not to follow “the moral compass that society expected of him,” his actions cannot be divorced from his relationship with Bostock, who had a history of “grooming” other officers into acts of criminality, Gingera said.

Bostock’s “role in this offence looms heavily over the proceedings,” Gingera said. “For whatever else he was, Matthew Kadyniuk was a junior officer. He had two years’ experience and he was somehow paired with a person who we now know was… one of the most corrupt Winnipeg police officers in recent memory.

“Elston Bostock should have been a mentor, should have been a role model for Mr. Kadyniuk. He should have helped (Kadyniuk) discharge his duties honourably and ethically. It’s fair to say the fact Mr. Kadyniuk was paired with Mr. Bostock did not set him up for success.”

Kadyniuk is “deeply remorseful” for his crimes and resigned from the police service after entering his guilty pleas last January, said defence lawyer Josh Weinstein.

“The career he had pursued since childhood is gone,” said Weinstein.

Kadyniuk’s criminal actions took place over hours, and did not constitute an ongoing pattern of misconduct, Weinstein said.

Kadyniuk will serve his sentence in plain view of a commuity aware of what he did, Weinstein said.

“I would have thought you were well-equipped to say: ‘This is wrong.’”

“He is a man whose face was in many respects public, whose conviction has been widely reported, whose church community, family, neighbours and the parents at his children’s school will all know who he is and what he has done,” Weinstein said. “The denunciatory force of that… is real, it is daily, and it is severe.”

Champagne said that had it not been for the Crown and defence jointly recommending Kadyniuk serve a conditional sentence in the community, he would have sentenced him to nine months in jail.

“Although you were only an officer for two years on the job when this offence took place, I would have thought you were well-equipped to say: ‘This is wrong,’” Champagne said. “And you didn’t.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca