A Mosquito First Nation man has been found guilty of misusing Treaty Land Entitlement funds to fraudulently pay himself and others to the tune of more than half a million dollars.
Gerald Bird, a former TLE trustee for the band, was convicted of criminal breach of trust at Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatoon on Monday morning.
Crown prosecutor Robin Ritter says he will be arguing for a sentence that includes federal jail time for Bird in what is a serious crime against his community.
“It’s important for the court to send a message and that is a message to other people that this kind of behaviour has to stop and you will be caught, you will be prosecuted, you will go to jail,” he says. “If you steal other people’s money and you steal band funds, you will go to jail.”
Ritter adds although the Crown is pleased with the conviction, the money that Bird and the other trustees stole from the band’s TLE account is unfortunately now gone forever and can never be used for land acquisition.
Bird was found not guilty of two counts of forgery and two charges of fraud over $5,000 were stayed.
He is one of four former trustees convicted of defrauding the Mosquito TLE account.
The infractions occurred while they were TLE trustees in 2002.
A fifth trustee, Clifford Spyglass, died in May 2012 before his charges were resolved.
Bird returns to court on Oct. 3 for sentencing.