Ex-Olympian pleads guilty to fraud
Pleads guilty to charge of fraud over $5,000
VICTORIA •AformerOlympic rower and investment dealer who mysteriously disappeared for nearly 18 months has been sentenced to 13 months in jail after pleading guilty to fraud.
Harold Backer was a 52-year-old, father-of-three, when he left his home for a morning bike ride on Nov. 3, 2015. He told his wife, Elizabeth Hardy, his likely destination was the Galloping Goose trail, a popular loop among Victoria cyclists. Then he vanished.
It was not until Holy Thursday 2017, more than 500 days after he disappeared, that he returned.
In a note to clients sent just before he disappeared, Backer apologizing for running a “pyramid” scheme after incurring steep losses in their portfolios during the dot.com market crash of 1999-2000.
“If admitting to fraud would help restore the losses, I would accept the criminal penalty,” Backer wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Victoria Times Colonist.
On Wednesday, he did accept the penalty, pleading guilty in Victoria provincial court to a single charge of fraud over $5,000.
The three-time Olympian had been facing two charges of fraud over $5,000 and had pleaded not guilty on both counts.
Judge Carmen Rogers also gave the former investment dealer three years of probation. In an agreed statement of facts, Backer promised to pay restitution of $161,900 to five people.
After Backer’s disappearance, police in Port Angeles, Wash., said an officer who viewed video from a street security camera noted a man fitting Backer’s description was aboard a ferry from Victoria, a 90-minute trip away.
But his whereabouts while he was missing haven’t been explained.
“As you can presume the answer to that was not relevant to today’s proceedings and I will not be answering that question,” said Backer’s lawyer Joven Narwal according to GlobalNews. “He has been looking forward to the criminal proceedings ending. No doubt he is deeply remorseful. To some degree the finality of this has been somewhat cathartic to him.”
Narwal said his client is extremely remorseful for his actions.
He said Backer, 55, has often expressed remorse in terms of an athlete letting down his team.
“Mr. Backer wants to express his deep remorse for his conduct through me,” Narwal said. “He does not wish to address the court. He’s let down the people who cared most deeply for him.” ’
Backer never intended to defraud his investors, Narwal said.
“The investments, and let’s say the optimism related to these investments, did not bear the fruit he was hoping for. And so loses occurred.”
Soon after he disappeared, financial crime investigators began looking into Backer and the company My Financial Backer Corp. after his investors received letters that concerned them.
In his letter to clients, including several Canadian rowing legends, Backer said he had lost a fortune of their money in the dot-com crash in 1999 and had then tried to cover up the loses.
“Moving forward to today, I am aware that I am running a pyramid investment,” he wrote. “My investors have been my friends, and I have done a terrible thing to my friends.”
One investor Boris Klavora told Global News Wednesday that he lost hundred of thousands of dollars in investments.
Klavora, one of Backer’s rowing coaches, told Global News, “That part is worse than the lost money. The lost friendship, the lost trust. He also lost his life. He is 55 years old, a capable person and his life is ruined. I feel bad for the people who lost money, his family and for him. It’s a tragedy.”
Backer was on the Canadian rowing team in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games.