Crown seeks 4 years for poultry plant staffer who stole $1.9m

The Crown is seeking a four-year jail term for a former manager of a Coquitlam poultry company who stole $1.9 million from his bosses.

In sentencing submissions Thursday, Crown counsel Kevin Marks noted that Bruce Steven Arabsky, 54, had committed his crime against Superior Poultry Processors Ltd. because he was financially over-extended.

Marks told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Miriam Gropper that Arabsky’s moral culpability for the theft was high and argued the offender had showed a “wanton and reckless disregard” for the welfare of his employer.

In March 2016, a few days into his trial, the father of five pleaded guilty to one count of theft over $5,000 in relation to the offence, that took place between November 2009 and May 2010. He later tried unsuccessfully to withdraw the guilty plea.

Court heard that Arabsky made several dozen electronic transfers totalling nearly $2 million from Superior to a company in Saskatchewan controlled by him. He did not tell his employer he’d done so and the employer was unaware that the money was missing.

The theft was only discovered when the company was looking into another financial issue and stumbled upon the crime, Marks told the judge.

Marks filed victim impact statements from the owners of the company, which said that they were devastated by the breach of trust of their employee.

He said the primary sentencing principles were denunciation and deterrence.

Arabsky was found liable to the company in a civil lawsuit heard earlier in B.C. Supreme Court and ordered to pay $1.9 million.

He has paid $400,000 so far, leaving nearly $1.5 million owed to the company.

Arabsky has no prior criminal record but in December 2014 was convicted for mislabelling and selling chicken drumsticks as turkey drumsticks, an offence committed under the Food and Drugs Act.

In March 2016, the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld his conviction for that offence.

The judge said that she wanted to give the submissions of the lawyers due consideration and would impose sentence Sept. 1.