Parking meter thieves get jail, but spared reimbursement
Three men who were working for Stationnement de Montréal when they stole toonies and loonies from parking meters were sentenced to prison terms Thursday.
The three were estimated to have stolen nearly $300,000 over 10 months while they gathered money from the city’s solar-powered parking meters.
Quebec Court Judge Pierre Labelle noted each had a different motive for stealing from a system Stationnement de Montréal believed was theft-proof, but each merited a prison term to send a message to others about stealing from employers.
“Sentences involving theft from an employer require that the principles of denunciation and dissuasion be prioritized, but this doesn’t obliterate other factors. In fact, rehabilitation should remain an objective that should always be considered, particularly in a case like this,” Labelle said as he read from his 20-page decision.
Stationnement de Montréal’s accounting system considered any discrepancy of up to one per cent of revenues a writeoff. But when the disparity reached four per cent, an investigation was launched. An internal investigation had already begun at that point after management learned that some of its keys to open boxes collected by employees had disappeared.
A forensic accountant who crunched the numbers on the amount of coins collected from more than 780 metres determined that some consistently had low ratios of toonies and loonies compared to the quarters recovered from them. All of the meters turned out to be on routes assigned to the men sentenced on Thursday. Another forensic accountant who testified at the trial said: “It was as if everyone who used the meters that were targeted had been advised to not use the $1 or $2 coins on a given day.”
A camera was installed in a van used by two of the men, and they were recorded removing coins from locked boxes they had recovered from meters on their route.
The boxes were to have been opened only upon return at Stationnement de Montréal headquarters.
Richard Bellavance, 57, of Terrebonne, a former city of Montreal blue collar employee whose pay dropped when he was transferred to Stationnement de Montréal, was sentenced to a 10-month prison term. The prosecution estimated that Bellavance stole more than $128,000 during a 10-month period in 2012 and 2013.
“(Bellavance’s crimes) seemed to be more motivated by a spirit of vengeance toward his employer than by cupidity,” Labelle noted in his decision. Bellavance had tried several times to return to his previous job but failed. It was clear he was disgruntled over his drop in pay and how it cost him more to get to work. “The opportunity to steal (money) from the victim appeared to be his way of equalizing things with Stationnement de Montréal.”
Jean-Michel Songue, 34, another city blue collar employee, was sentenced to seven months. He was already detained in another pending case and was recently convicted for assault. He is estimated to have stolen nearly $107,000 and was training to be a music producer when he was arrested in 2013.
Jocelyn Joseph Lefebvre, 51, of St-Alexis-des-Monts, received a two-part sentence. He will be able to serve the first part in the community over the next 12 months. But on Nov. 1, 2019, he will have to report to a detention centre to serve the second part, a 60-day prison term, on weekends. He is estimated to have stolen around $57,000.
“We won’t see you again, I’m sure,” Labelle said to Lefebvre at one point while referring to how he had no previous criminal record and was assessed to be a low risk of reoffending in a presentence report.
Labelle rejected a request from the Crown that all three men be ordered to reimburse what they stole. The pre-sentence reports prepared for all three described their current financial situations as “oscillating between difficult and desperate,” the judge noted.
“(An) order to reimburse would have much heavier consequences on the offenders than the losses were for (Stationnement de Montréal).”