Judge hands lottery-ticket thief $425-K ‘life sentence’

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This article was published 04/04/2023 (1196 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba woman has been ordered to repay $425,000 for lottery tickets she stole while working at a rural gas bar, a punishment a judge likened to a “life sentence.”

Cynthia Hallick was assistant manager at the Sportsman’s Stop Esso when, over the course of four years, she stole thousands of scratch-and-win lottery tickets from her employer.

In a written decision released last week, Court of King’s Bench Justice Theodor Bock found Hallick, as office manager, had a fiduciary duty to her employer, a finding that could still leave her liable for the lottery-ticket losses should she claim bankruptcy.

“I come to this conclusion reluctantly,” Bock said, previously noting the divorced, single mother of four never made much more than minimum wage while working at the gas bar.

“In economic terms, such a finding amounts to the imposition of a life sentence,” he said. “It would take Ms. Hallick over 28,000 hours of work at $15 hours per hour just to retire the principal amount of her judgment debt. Given the difficult personal circumstances that seem to have contributed to Ms. Hallick’s current situation, this seems cruel, and one hopes others will take the same view.”

Sportsman’s owner Donald Mabb hired Hallick part time in 2011 and she “quickly established herself as a dedicated and reliable employee,” Bock said. Hallick was later named assistant manager, a position that included responsibility for lottery-ticket sales.

The Free Press could not reach Mabb for comment Monday. An employee who answered the phone at the gas bar said the business changed hands last year.

In 2019, Mabb’s accountant became concerned about the business’s financial performance and, after a review of its books, found Sportsman’s was losing money on its lottery-ticket sales, something that, theoretically, should have been impossible, Bock said.

Lottery-ticket retailers are provided tickets in blocks from the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Commission and receive a five per cent commission on the sale of each ticket. Each block of tickets must be “activated” electronically by the retailer before they can be offered for sale, at which point they are considered sold by MLCC, which then bills the retailer accordingly. Any unsold tickets can be returned by the retailer for a refund.

Mabb and partner Cecilia Reid identified Hallick as “the most likely suspect” and on June 6, 2019, secretly recorded her while she worked alone at the store.

Video footage provided to court “confirmed their suspicions,” and showed Hallick repeatedly taking unactivated lottery tickets from behind a cashier’s counter and activating them before scratching each individual ticket. Video footage showed Hallick occasionally taking money from the cash register and placing it in her purse.

An inventory of lottery tickets on hand before and after Hallick’s shift showed a $938 loss in lottery-ticket revenue. She was fired a short time later.

A subsequent investigation by the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba found $365 in winnings were paid out the day Hallick was secretly observed. An investigator told court determining how much money Hallick may have taken in winnings over the course of her employment would have been too difficult and time consuming and was not pursued.

“The amount Ms. Hallick may have won from stolen tickets is not known and does not form part of the claim against her,” Bock said.

An audit of lottery-ticket revenues between 2015 and 2019 showed net losses grew from $23,000 in 2015 to nearly $155,000 in 2018. Tellingly, Bock said, the losses all but disappeared between Oct. 11, 2016, and March 1, 2017, when Hallick was off work recovering from surgery.

Hallick, who represented herself at trial, said she had a gambling addiction, but denied stealing the lottery tickets. She said on the day her employers recorded her at work, she had intended to leave an IOU on the cash register for the tickets she had taken, but simply forgot.

Hallick argued another employee or customers may have stolen the lottery tickets.

Hallick’s personal circumstances at the time, including a serious illness, a court custody fight with her ex-husband and other serious stressors, “explains how she may have come to engage in such harmful, reckless and self-destructive behaviour,” Bock said.

“I find it very likely that Ms. Hallick’s compulsive and dishonest behaviour… was a response to what appears to have been and exceedingly difficult time in her life, physically, emotionally and financially,” he said.

Hallick has been charged criminally in connection to the same offences and remains before the court, charged with one count of theft over $5,000.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca