Former employee pleads guilty to defrauding dentist

An employee who extracted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a local dentist and used the cash to fund family vacations and invest in her children’s education savings accounts will return to court in November.

At issue is the total amount Jennifer Leslie, who pleaded guilty Monday in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines to a charge of fraud over $5,000, bilked from her employer.

A forensic audit indicated over $500,000 was missing, while the defendant claims the total was between $300,000 and $500,000. When she was arrested in Niagara Falls in March 2018, a Niagara Regional Police news release said the loss was more than $554,000.

Court heard the 37-year-old St. Catharines woman worked as a bookkeeper and general manager at dental offices in Fort Erie and Ridgeway starting in 2013. Over a three-year period, she made hundreds of unauthorized transactions and funnelled the cash into her personal bank accounts.

Assistant Crown attorney Tim Hill said Leslie used the cash to fund family vacations, purchase a vehicle, invest in her children’s RESPs as well as to gamble.

A financial institution discovered the fraud and contacted the dentist, who operated both offices. The dentist hired a company to complete a forensic audit, the results of which indicated he had been scammed out of more than a half-million dollars.

“The dentist has had to liquidate some investments and borrow to deal with this calamity against his practice,” Hill told the judge.

A sentencing hearing is set for Nov. 4. The Crown said he would be seeking a two-year penitentiary term.