Alleged fraudster Reagan finally has date with judge

Six months after he was initially due to go on trial here, the man at the centre of the hockey dormitory scandal is finally set to go in front of a judge in Penticton.

Court records show Loren Reagan, 56, is scheduled for a bail hearing Tuesday morning in provincial court, following an initial appearance Friday in Kelowna.

The charge on which he is currently being held is an alleged breach of a previous bail order by failing to appear in court on Sept. 11, 2017.

That’s the day his trial was supposed to start in B.C. Supreme Court in Penticton on charges of fraud over $5,000, theft over $5,000 and unauthorized management of a lottery scheme.

The trial went ahead with co-accused Mike Elphicke being convicted on all counts and a Canada-wide warrant being issued for Reagan.

He remained at large until March 4, when he was arrested by police in Calgary.

Elphicke’s trial heard how he and Reagan launched the Okanagan Elite Hockey Association in 2010 ostensibly to send teenagers and their parents on an overseas hockey tour.

The trip never left the ground, however, and funds were diverted to personal expenses and the dormitory project, which was scuttled in 2011, when Reagan failed to come up with the cash required to purchase the Eckhardt Avenue properties under it from the City of Penticton.

As reported previously in The Herald, Reagan on Feb. 28 filed in Calgary a $450,000 civil lawsuit against Elphicke and five others, accusing them of defaming him on a now defunct Facebook page and alleging they impacted his right to a fair trial.