Ex-RCMP officer attempted to flee: ASIRT

An ex-RCMP officer convicted of harassment and fraud is facing new charges of obstruction of justice, after he missed his sentencing date with an alleged illness and attempted to obtain a passport.

A woman is also charged with attempting to help him flee to New Zealand.

It’s the latest in the case of 33-year-old Aaron Lee Sayler, a former Stony Plain Mountie who was convicted of 10 offences in September including fraud over $5,000, using a forged document to commit an offence and harassing his ex-romantic partners.

Notably, he was also found guilty of mischief for egging an ex-girlfriend’s house three times between December 2015 and January 2016, using eggs covered in glitter and emblazoned with sexist words.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) announced the new charges Friday. Sayler resigned from the RCMP in 2016.

Sayler is facing two additional counts of obstruction of justice and a count of breach of a recognizance. ASIRT alleges that sometime between Feb. 8 and March 5,

Sayler “counselled or instructed” the destruction of evidence in his case and interfered with a witness in relation to his previous charges.

A woman, Sukhvinder Kaur Gill, is also charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. ASIRT alleges Gill engaged in the concealment and/or destruction of evidence in relation to Sayler’s charges, and that she assisted in his plan to flee the country.

The 37-year-old is alleged to have signed an Immigration New Zealand financial undertaking document. Gill could not immediately be reached for comment.

ASIRT did not specify the relationship between the two. Sayler’s original court decision states that a woman named Suki Gill is his spouse.

Sayler was scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 1 in Stony Plain provincial court. But as the hearing was set to begin, Sayler’s lawyer told court his client had been hospitalized in Two Hills with a “chest bronchial infection” which required him to be quarantined.

The lawyer, Darin Sprake, said he received a fax from a doctor confirming Sayler’s illness and also spoke to hospital staff on the phone.

Crown prosecutor Photini Papadatou told court she was “suspicious” about Sayler’s alleged illness, saying she had just told his lawyer she would seek a jail sentence “at the high end of the provincial range” of two years.

Later that month, ASIRT arrested Sayler in Edmonton after learning he allegedly had tried to obtain a passport, which he had surrendered as part of his bail conditions. According to allegations in court documents, Sayler attempted to get a new passport after claiming his had been lost.

He was charged with making a false statement in relation to a passport, fraud under $5,000, attempting to obstruct justice and failing to comply with conditions. A judge revoked Sayler’s original bail and denied bail on the additional charges.

Among other things, Sayler was convicted of defrauding the RCMP of more than $5,000 in transfer-related benefits by forging a document related to his transfer from Slave Lake to Stony Plain.

He was also found guilty of stealing an Airsoft gun while conducting a search warrant in 2015, and of slashing the tire of a vehicle belonging to a woman who later got a restraining order against him.

Court heard that after leaving policing, Sayler went to study pharmacy at the University of Alberta.

He is scheduled to appear in court April 10. Gill was released on a promise to appear and is scheduled to be in court May 8.