Man accused of GoFundMe fraud denies making off with almost $3,700

SASKATOON — Andrij Olesiuk says he didn't catch the door-todoor canvasser's name, and the receipt she gave him was incinerated in a “total-loss” fire, but he gave her $4,100 to pass on to the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.

That is the basis of the 33-yearold's defence at his trial on multiple charges laid more than a year ago in connection with an alleged scam involving an online fundraiser for the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team.

The Crown's case is based on documents and evidence showing that almost $3,700 raised using the #PrayForHumboldt GoFundMe page was deposited into Olesiuk's account and never directed to the team, prosecutor Darren Howarth told court.

“My intention was to raise funds for the families affected by the tragedy,” Olesiuk testified. He was the sole defence witness in the judge-alone trial at Saskatoon provincial court on Wednesday.

Olesiuk told court he gave $4,100 to a door-to-door canvasser in Martensville on April 24, 2018, one day before he closed the online fundraiser established the morning after the team's April 6 bus crash north of Tisdale.

That total, paid in $100 bills from a basement safe to a canvasser whose name he didn't catch, was intended to cover the expected proceeds of the GoFundMe page plus a roughly $700 donation from his own family, Olesiuk testified.

He said he gave the money to the canvasser because she appeared to be acting officially, collecting money that would be forwarded to the team at an unspecified “charity event,” and that seemed simpler than going to Humboldt.

Under cross-examination, Olesiuk acknowledged that he did not give the money “directly” to the hockey team as the GoFundMe indicated he would, and that he could not confirm where the cash he gave to the unidentified woman went.

“You gave it to someone you didn't know . ... You didn't even know if she was representing the Humboldt Broncos hockey team,” Howarth said while cross-examining Olesiuk, who was arrested and charged in November 2018.

“I don't know for sure,” Olesiuk testified.

He said he received a printed “thank you” flyer from the canvasser and the promise of a receipt. That receipt was delivered two days later, but lost in a house fire in February 2019, three months after his arrest, he said.

Police discovered the GoFundMe under the name #PrayForHumboldt in October 2018, and established that it received 35 contributions — 21 from Canada and 14 from the U.S. — before it was shut down about three weeks after the crash.

Olesiuk was subsequently charged with fraud over $5,000, fraud under $5,000, possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000, possession of property obtained by crime under $5,000, and laundering proceeds of crime.