Elderly man says scamster ‘tortured me beyond belief’
Tina and Ben Bueckert hope the darkest chapter of their lives can be a warning to others that sometimes, friendships are not what they seem.
Inside the Warman seniors centre, where the couple attend church services and gather for catered meals, the Bueckerts have 14 labelled folders neatly assembled on a table. They contain information about each time David Matthew Adrian took their money. The elderly couple lost most of their life savings to the career con man who befriended Ben. A court has ruled that he defrauded Ben of $112,800.
In 2015 and 2016, Adrian, now 64, asked for loans — and then for more and more money to repay those loans — convincing Ben that if he didn’t continue providing money, he’d never get his initial loan back.
Ben lived in silent anguish for months, hiding his problems from his wife until Tina, 79, noticed her husband’s empty bank account. She realized Adrian was controlling Ben with threats of bankruptcy and suicide, so she changed Ben’s bank accounts to require her signature on all withdrawals.
That ended the friendship, Tina said. She recalled her husband returning home from a walk in October 2016, utterly shaken. The 84-year-old said Adrian had told him, “If you take me to court, remember, I always win.”
Ben went to police and Adrian was charged. He delayed his trial several times over the next two years by missing his initial date, getting an adjournment after requesting a lawyer mid-trial and then claiming he was too injured to proceed on the rescheduled day.
When his trial was finally set to conclude in Saskatoon provincial court on Jan. 31, Adrian pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000. He was sentenced to five years in prison — after a joint submission from the Crown and defence — and ordered to pay the Bueckerts restitution, ending a four-year nightmare.
THE FRAUD
It all started with a bus trip.
In 2015, Adrian asked Ben, a retired tour bus driver, if he’d take a church group to Whitefish, Mont. Despite being 80 years old at the time, Ben agreed.
Tina said Adrian knew Ben loved driving buses and appeared to be “pushing” a friendship, adding it was the first sign that something was wrong.
The next month, Adrian sold Ben a truck for $25,000, which he later offered to sell, on Ben’s behalf, to another buyer for $30,000. He sold it for $20,000 and pocketed the money, telling Ben a better truck was on its way.
Shortly after, he said he needed $10,000 for financing on an acreage he was selling — a loan he promised to pay back “right away,” according to the agreed facts presented in court.
Instead, he asked for another $10,000. Ben loaned him the money, but no acreage was ever sold.
Then there were pleas for thousands of dollars to buy and license buses that never existed. Believing his previous loans were in jeopardy, Ben handed over the money.
When Ben had no more to give, Adrian convinced him to take out a $30,000 bank loan to pay for liens on buses that he said were stuck in the United States.
It was all a lie. Adrian was using the money to pay for alcohol, restaurant meals and home repairs.
“(This was), during that time frame, his income for which he lived off of,” Crown prosecutor Darren Howarth said during his sentencing submissions.
One day, after Tina discovered what was happening, Adrian came over in a panic, demanding more money for buses. The couple scraped together all the cash they had at home — money they had saved to pay their property taxes.
Adrian told Ben he had $400,000 invested in offshore accounts that would soon be coming to Canada. Looking back, Ben said that should have been a red flag. Instead, it was a beacon of heartbreaking hope that kept him constantly waiting by the phone.
“He has tortured me beyond belief,” Ben said in court. “I trusted David; I went way beyond helping David as a friend.”
THE COURT CASE
Adrian’s record includes 108 prior fraud-related convictions since 1974. He was sentenced last year for defrauding the Department of Social Services of $26,000 and breached his probation by failing to repay what he stole, court heard.
Case law shows five-year sentences are usually reserved for large-scale frauds committed by first-time offenders, but the opposite is true for Adrian, whose “abysmal” criminal record, high risk to reoffend and decision to prey on elderly victims are aggravating factors, Howarth argued.
“These are the people who have given so much to society, that society ought to be protecting, not taking advantage of. They do not have the opportunity to work and make this money back,” he said.
Adrian is a self-admitted pathological liar diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which could have complicated his decision-making skills, Howarth noted.
“He believes in a set of circumstances that are clearly untrue, and he may go to his grave that way. But that doesn’t absolve himself of any of the guilt,” Adrian’s lawyer, Michael Nolin, said at sentencing.
He said Adrian is as remorseful as someone with his mental health “incapacities” can be.
“I think for me to say anything is kind of useless. If it were possible to go back a few years and start over, yeah, anybody would. I can’t. That’s all I have to say,” Adrian said before he was sentenced.
In a phone interview, Dan Adrian said he has distanced himself from his identical twin brother over the past 30 years.
“The family is ashamed of what Dave is, and has been, all his life. Our hearts go out to Ben and Tina and the many people that have been involved with (Dave),” he said.
In her victim impact statement, Wendy Janzen said her parents weren’t able to buy gifts for their grandkids, which they loved giving, and started missing social events. Any trips they were planning to take are now impossible.
“The elderly in this world need to be protected from predators like David,” Janzen’s husband, Marcell, told court.
Judge Shannon Metivier told Adrian he took advantage of generous, hard-working people who lived frugally so they could enjoy their retirement years.
She then turned to Ben and Tina. “It is my hope that you might heal in time and hopefully regain your health and your spirit (from) before this happened, because those qualities that made you vulnerable are also the qualities that make you wonderful people.”