Ex-poultry manager can’t withdraw guilty plea for $1.9M theft from employer

The former manager of a Coquitlam poultry company has lost his bid to withdraw his guilty plea to stealing nearly $1.9 million from his employer.

On March 15, 2016, on the third day of trial, Bruce Steven Arabsky pleaded guilty to one count of theft over $5,000 involving his company, Superior Poultry Processors Ltd. He was also initially charged with fraud.

While acting as a senior manager for the firm, Arabsky had arranged wire transfers totalling $1.9 million from Superior to a company in Saskatchewan of which he was the sole shareholder and president. The offences occurred between November 2009 and March 2010.

Court heard that he entered the plea on the advice of his lawyer, who recommended he plead guilty to theft as it carried a lesser penalty of the two charges that had been laid against him.

Sentencing was adjourned until May 2016 so that a psychiatrist’s report on Arabsky could be prepared for the court. Two days after the report was issued, on Aug. 22, Arabsky fired his lawyer.

The report had indicated that he suffered from no mental illness. Arabsky then sought an adjournment so that he could have a new lawyer and make an application to withdraw his guilty plea.

Arabsky argued that his plea was not voluntary and unequivocal, and that he was given little time to consider the matter and was under undue pressure to make a decision.

He claimed that his former counsel told him that if he pleaded guilty he would not get jail time. But his lawyer testified that he told Arabsky that it was very hard if not impossible to get a conditional sentence, but that with evidence of mental illness, it might be possible.

The Crown argued that the plea was voluntary and unequivocal, and that he was informed of the potential consequences, which included a jail term of three to five years.

In her ruling dismissing the application to withdraw the plea, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Laura Gerow noted that the first time Arabsky indicated he wished to change his plea was after the psychiatric report was released and found he knew of the Crown’s position calling for jail time.

“In my view it is apparent that Mr. Arabsky was well aware of the sentence the Crown would be seeking if he pleaded guilty,” said the judge. “He was also aware of the nature of the charges against him.”

The judge said the evidence indicated that the accused entered a voluntary, unequivocal plea.

“There is no miscarriage of justice if the plea is not withdrawn,” she said.

A sentencing hearing for Arabsky is scheduled for July 6.

In March 2016 the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld Arabsky’s December 2014 conviction for mislabelling and selling chicken drumsticks as turkey drumsticks.

He’d been convicted of the offences under the Food and Drugs Act while he was employed as the general manager of Superior.

Arabsky had instructed the production supervisor at the plant to prepare chicken drumsticks for export to Afghanistan and place them in boxes labelled turkey drumsticks.

There is no miscarriage of justice if the plea is not withdrawn.