Hockey dorm fiasco ends with plea deal
The man at the centre of a hockey dorm scandal in Penticton was sentenced Monday to a year in jail — but is already free following a plea deal that required him to serve just two-thirds of his time.
Loren Reagan and his former business partner Michael Gordon Elphicke were accused of fraud over $5,000, theft over $5,000 and unauthorized management of a lottery scheme.
Reagan was arrested in Calgary in March after failing to show up for trial in 2017.
Reagan’s three-week trial was scheduled to begin Monday morning in Kelowna, but instead, Crown and defence presented a joint submission, and Reagan pleaded guilty to theft over $5,000.
Reagan had spent eight months and eight days in jail, totalling 12 months and 12 days with enhanced credit.
Crown and defence proposed a jail sentence of time served, followed by two years’ probation and a stand-alone restitution order of $80,000 to the 16 families that fell victim to his theft.
In 2010, Reagan and Elphicke created the Okanagan Elite Hockey Association with the intent of sending hockey players and their parents on a tour of Europe.
From July 1, 2011 to January 31, 2012, Reagan stole funds from the Okanagan Elite Association and 16 parents of bantam-aged hockey players.
The cost was $5,500 per traveller for the European tour, minus whatever families pulled in by selling raffle tickets for meat draws, which were operated without the required gaming licence.
The Okanagan Elite Hockey Association collected $130,000 in trip deposits and raffle proceeds between July 2011 and January 2012.
Only $15,000 of that money went towards the European hockey tour, the court heard Monday.
However, the intent to put on the trip was genuine, defence counsel Kim Russell said in court.
“This was not a scheme that was devised from the outset to bilk the complainants of their money,” he said.
The reason the trip never happened was because Reagan and Elphicke were not good businesspeople, said Russell.
The trip was further hamstrung by Reagan’s related plan to build a dormitory for hockey academy students in Penticton.
“That’s where a large part of the theft arises, is the use of funds from the OEHA towards the dorm project for permits and various expenses related to that,” said Russell. “And that was unbeknownst to the parents.”
The dorm project consumed $40,000 of the money paid and raised by parents, while $20,000 was used by Elphicke for personal use, and $30,000 to $40,000 was used for Reagan’s personal use.
The dorm died when Reagan was unable to complete the purchase of nine Eckhardt Avenue lots from the city, but not before construction started on the building’s foundation.
Justice Mark McEwan expressed frustration at the joint submission.
“I am not happy with the length of this term,” he said, referring to the proposed jail sentence. “This seems to be very slight for what he’s done.”
Elphicke was sentenced earlier this year to two years’ house arrest followed by three years’ probation and was ordered to pay $117,000 in restitution to the 16 families.
Reagan addressed the court Monday, expressing his remorse.
“I’d like to apologize for the circumstances,” he said. “It was poor management on my part, and I regret that dearly.”