Evelyn Hynes

Blogged January 2005 Stealing from the poor.

The government gave welfare recipients an extra $10 on their cheques after having not made an increase for almost 20 years. Meanwhile this woman had set up phony accounts and had been robbing money -- a million maybe? we can't know for sure.

Turns out she'd already been convicted of fraud in another province.

But the government was busy trying to criminalize innocent people and din't have time to check on proper crims like Evelyn Hynes.

$1M fraud lands Hynes four-year term
Former welfare managerhad history of lucrative scams

Lori Coolican, The StarPhoenix, Thursday, July 13, 2006

A former Saskatoon manager for the provincial government's welfare system is on her way to prison for defrauding taxpayers of more than $1 million over a 12-year period.

Evelyn Mary Hynes, 56, frittered away money intended for some of the province's neediest citizens on "frivolous" shopping trips, personal services, travel and a gambling habit that "verged on addiction," Crown prosecutor Perry Polischuk told a provincial court judge in a joint submission, after Hynes pleaded guilty to a single count of fraud Wednesday.

Her sentence of four years in a federal penitentiary includes a restitution order, allowing the province to avoid launching an expensive civil suit to recover at least some of the stolen funds. Investigators were unable to find any assets purchased with the money. Hynes' lawyer, Si Halyk, told court she was careful not to spend her ill-gotten bounty on big-ticket items because her husband would have asked too many questions.

Hynes started welfare files for 16 fictitious people between Aug. 24, 1992, and Nov. 26, 2004, issuing cheques in their names and eventually starting bank accounts and credit cards for several of them, boosting her income by about $7,000 a month.

The situation first came to light in December 2004 and was referred to the RCMP. Hynes was fired the following January, but no charges were laid until April 2006 because investigators were still working to uncover the full amount of the missing money.

Hynes already had a history of lucrative fraud when she was hired by the Department of Community Resources in 1989. Five years earlier, she was convicted of defrauding her employer, CIBC in Cornerbrook, N. L., of $590,702 by issuing loans to 22 people who didn't exist. She served two years less a day in jail and received a pardon in early 1993.

Ironically, she was once the author of a victim impact statement in a fraud case against a welfare recipient, in which she wrote welfare fraud may be seen as a victimless crime, but it affects everyone in society, Polischuk said.

Hynes received a master's degree in social work from the University of Regina in 2002, has been a professor and lecturer there and is "highly respected and regarded in her field," Halyk told court, adding she co-operated with police as soon as she became aware of their investigation and even helped them trace the extent of what she had done.

"She knew she had to pay a price and she wanted to pay that price, and she wanted it done as soon as possible," he said.

Outside the courthouse, Halyk ignored a reporter's question about whether his client has a gambling addiction.

Before she was led away in handcuffs, Hynes told Irwin she was sorry for the pain and embarrassment she caused her family and her employer and co-workers, adding some of them must wonder if they ever knew her at all. She said she is taking counselling to try to figure out why she did it.

"I do wish I could offer a reason . . . why I took such a promising life and reduced it to what it is," she said.

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