Donations went to personal use
Special hockey needs team co-founder admits to personal use of funds for about a third of donations to Huskies
“Maybe more, but not much more” than a third of funds meant for the Peterborough Huskies were used for her family’s personal expenses, special needs hockey team co-founder Catherine Tuck told city police Det. Const. Keith Calderwood.
The day-of-arrest admission was recorded in a Nov. 2, 2016 audio/ video statement played Tuesday in Peterborough Ontario Court of Justice Tuesday as part of the ongoing fraud over $5,000 trial of Catherine and her husband David.
The recording was played after Calderwood, lead investigator and member of the city police financial crimes unit, took the stand as the trial’s fourth witness.
During the approximately onehour recording, the officer repeatedly drew Catherine’s attention to many cash withdrawals from the Huskies’ account – amounting to $32,347 between the spring of 2013 and summer 2016 – for which their was no paper trail.
“Cathy, what’s going on with all this money?” he asked at one point, pressing for answers.
“I don’t know. I really don’t,” she responded.
The admission came soon after. Calderwood asked Catherine how much of the $32,347 had been used for her family’s expenses.
“A third of it, maybe,” she said, adding it was used for food and gas, for example.
Calderwood, who told Catherine he did not doubt that the couple’s intentions were always good, later asked her how she felt.
“I feel terrible ... about this whole situation. Our heart is in the right place for these kids,” she said.
The stay-at-home mother of two told Calderwood it was hard to hear the banking details and, when asked why the Tucks used money for themselves, replied, “I don’t know if it was just a way to keep our heads above water to pay our own bills.”
Asked what should happen next, she said she wanted to talk to her husband. “I know we have to pay it back. That’s going to take a long time.”
Online donations to the Huskies email were deposited into David’s account and then the Huskies account “within a couple of days,” Catherine had earlier told Calderwood, who then asked if that always happened. “I’m pretty sure they do.”
Calderwood suggested that didn’t always happen, showing her more records.
“It’s been on me, that part of things,” Catherine said, in agreeing she wasn’t keeping records as “up to date” as she should and email transfers were sent to her, too.
Asked how she would feel if she donated and found out money was actually in someone’s personal account, she responded “Not very good.”
Calderwood then pointed out that David received more than 40 e-transfers from Huskies parents amounting to $9,162.80 between Nov. 20, 2013 and July 1, 2016.
Catherine said some of that money was spent on the team, but couldn’t explain the rest. “I can’t honestly tell you at the moment.”
When the officer asked her if they had began to use the money for their own personal expenses, she replied “Lately, yeah.”
Asked if her husband spent Huskies’ money to go to the Daytona 500, Catherine said he told her the trip with a friend was funded with his holiday pay. “I thought he paid for it on his own ... we don’t really discuss our finances.”
Calderwood testified how the investigation began on Oct. 13, 2015 after police received an anonymous letter complaining the co-founders of the Huskies were “living off the avails” of fundraising and not keeping supporters apprised of organization finances.
He spent more than a year investigating the Tucks and Huskies, pouring over banking records and looking into various fundraising efforts.
The officer soon found the team’s ice time in Bewdley has been suspended for a lack of funds and later that the team should have had enough money to pay for it. The discrepancies provided grounds to arrest the Tucks on a fraud under $5,000 charge.
Following Catherine’s admission during the police statement, Calderwood informed her the charge would be changing to fraud over $5,000 because a third of the $32,347 was in question would amount to more than $10,000.
When the search warrant was carried out, police found no financial records or money related to the Huskies at the Tucks’ Denne Cres. home, Calderwood testified during chief examination by assistant Crown attorney Sam Humphrey.
During her arrest, Catherine told the officer they didn’t keep a ledger or “anything like that.”
During his arrest, David said “My wife looks after all of that stuff.”
David’s current and a former employer also took the stand Tuesday, before Calderwood.
Mike Donnelly, who runs the taxi company where David has worked for 21 years, began proceedings as the trial’s second witness.
A typical week will see David work three days as a dispatcher – for which he earns $14 an hour – and two days driving, where he makes 40 per cent commission minus HST and about $20 a day in tips, the Call-A-Cab president said.
All employees are paid via direct deposit and pay for gas with a fleet card, said Donnelly, who testified he had given David – like he would with any of his good employees – loans that were treated as advances on their pay. During cross-examination with defence lawyer Brad Allison, he called David a “consistent worker” who “doesn’t miss a whole lot of time for us.”
Cory Low, a Norwood man who runs a company that distributes the Peterborough Examiner, was the trial’s third witness.
David worked for him from about September 2013 until October 2016 as an independent contractor, delivering the daily newspaper six times a week in the Norwood area. That was later reduced to three days a week after David split the run in half with someone else.
Low paid David $100 a day biweekly by cheque when his company first incorporated before moving to direct deposit, he testified.
The trial, which is being heard by Madam Justice Jennifer Broderick, continues Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. before a break until May 15 and 16 to give the defence time to review recently received disclosure.