Half of charges dropped against former minister

A number of the charges against former Kensington area Presbyterian minister Harold Alan Stewart have been dropped.

Stewart, 67, was facing 22 charges in Ontario relating to the alleged defrauding of an elderly woman in the Durham area. There are four co-accused in the case.

A preliminary hearing in the case started on Sept. 25 in the Durham Regional Courthouse and is scheduled to continue until Oct. 6.

On the first day of the hearing, 11 of the charges against Stewart were dropped by the Crown. The remaining charges include one count of fraud under $5,000, two counts of fraudulent use of credit card, four counts of fraud over $5,000, two counts of uttering a forged document, one count of laundering the proceedings of crime and one count of theft by power of attorney.

The withdrawn charges include four counts of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, five counts of possession of stolen property, one count of using false pretenses and one count of participating in a criminal organization.

Stewart was charged in November 2016, following an investigation Ontario police called Project Banshee.

Police allege that Stewart and his co-accused befriended the victim and eventually gained access to her credit card and took out a mortgage against her property. The victim’s losses were about $160,000.

According to media reports in Ontario, police also allege at least one other victim lost more than $325,000 to the group of co-accused. One of them is also alleged to have attempted to defraud a charitable organization of more than $525,000.