$157,000 fraud
‘Thank you for your trust in me,’ Michelle Dunk wrote longtime friend who invested $38,000 and lost it all
Waterloo woman guilty in securities fraud
KITCHENER — A former motivational speaker from Waterloo told investors — including a longtime friend — their money would be 100 per cent secure.
The claim was “patently false,” a judge said this week in finding Michelle Dunk guilty of four charges under the Securities Act: fraud, trading securities while prohibited, illegally distributing securities and trading without registration.
Four investors lost a total of $157,000, a mix of Canadian and U.S. currency.
A date for Dunk’s sentencing hearing will be set on Friday.
Frances Boychuk, who lost $38,000, said in an interview she had been friends with Dunk for more than 20 years and had previously attended the same church, Koinonia Christian Fellowship in Bloomingdale.
Boychuk figured she could trust Dunk. “That’s why I didn’t do any background check on her.”
Boychuk’s mother invested $50,000 and Boychuk’s cousin $20,000. Her mother got $1,000 back. None of the other investors — including a man who put in $50,000 — got anything.
“Even though this was a shock to me and a violation, I’ve turned it into something good to make sure this doesn’t happen to other people,” said Boychuk, 40, of Kitchener.
In 2016, Dunk, 41, was sentenced to 75 days in jail on weekends after pleading guilty to unregistered trading and breaching an order by the Ontario Securities Commission.
Those charges stemmed from the sale of Hockley Energy securities to Ontario investors six to seven years ago.
A man and his sister, both in their 60s, invested a total of $606,000 in the Texas oilfields. They received some payments but were still out $475,000.
Months after being sent to jail, Dunk was charged with the latest offences, which happened between 2012 and 2016. She was under a cease-trade order when she sold promissory notes to Boychuk, her mother and cousin to fund closing costs for a joint venture between Rocky Point Energy and First Boston Global Custody and Trust Co.
She promised they would get the principal back and 15 per cent interest to be paid within 45 days.
Dunk told another investor his $50,000 would buy oil reserves at $15 a barrel and he would be rewarded with oil price proceeds above $60 a barrel in monthly instalments over seven years.
Before the charges, Dunk was a celebrated community member. She says she was awarded an Ontario Citizen of the Year award for community service in 1995.
Dunk went on to become a successful public speaker, “sought after by president Bill Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres, Suzanne Somers and Dr. Oz,” according to her profile at worldwidebranding.com.
In 2012, she was one of the featured speakers at the Inspiring Women event in Kitchener. Dunk identified herself as an entrepreneur who overcame long-term sexual abuse at a young age and found a way to help other women find their inner strength.
Dunk’s previous good reputation helped convince people to invest.
“Thank you for your trust in me,” Dunk wrote in a note to Boychuk soon after she invested.
“She seems to have been a rather upstanding citizen, well respected within the community, recipient of various awards, which would entail honesty and trustworthiness, “Justice Gary Hearn said in sentencing her in 2016.
“And I suspect it’s a lot of those reasons why people such as the victims here became involved with Ms. Dunk.”
The judge on the latest charges, Justice Melanie Sopinka, this week said some of Dunk’s testimony was “completely unbelievable” and designed to paint herself in a positive light.
Boychuk credited Sopinka for an in-depth judgment, which took more than two hours to read.
“I wasn’t expecting her to be that thorough. She came across as a phenomenal judge. Justice prevailed.”