Treasurer stole $94K from Southwestern Ontario youth soccer club

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SIMCOE – A 34-year-old man whose fraud brought a local youth soccer club to the brink of ruin has been sent to jail for 18 months.

During Brodie Chambers’ time as the Simcoe and District Youth Soccer Club’s treasurer in 2021 and 2022, he siphoned off $94,285, falsified documents and reports, and forged signatures to drain the group’s savings.

“This wasn’t a lapse in judgment,” Justice Colette Good said as she sentenced Chambers in Simcoe’s Ontario Court of Justice. “This was 67 fraudulent transactions . . . a sophisticated scheme you hatched to cover gambling debts and because you and your wife liked to take vacations.”

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Good said Chambers’ actions had given the club a “black eye” in the community because parents would wonder if their soccer fees would be going to “some guy and his wife’s vacation.”

The most aggravating part of the scheme, said the judge, was that Chambers victimized the community’s 1,100 soccer-playing kids.

A victim impact statement offered by the soccer club said fees paid by players to the not-for profit group go toward field rentals, maintenance, equipment, uniforms, insurance and year-end player and coach awards.

Michelle Millson, the vice president of the club, said Chambers circumvented the usual safe-guards put in place to prevent embezzlement, and presented false monthly reports to the executive to make them believe all was well financially.

In reality, Chambers wrote himself dozens of cheques and falsified a notice needed for insurance purposes so, if something had happened to a player, the club wouldn’t have been covered.

He also held back the required payroll deductions for the club manager’s salary, causing the Canada Revenue Agency to deem the club “not in good standing.”

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“The breach of trust really affected us,” Millson said in an interview after the sentencing. “We feel like we let the community down and there was a lot of anger because it affected our 50th anniversary celebrations.”

In order to cover up the huge loss of money, Chambers collapsed a GIC by talking the club’s bank into allowing him to take documents out of the bank to get the signatures of the executive, which he then forged.

“He could have placed the club in significant risk,” said assistant Crown attorney Gracie Romano.

She noted that, after his arrest, Chambers didn’t seek professional help to address his gambling addiction or attempt to pay back any of the stolen funds.

Romano asked the judge to send Chambers to jail for 18 months and to order him to repay the club.

But Lauren Wilhelm, representing the former treasurer, said jail would deter Chambers, who would lose his high-paying steel industry job, from paying back at least a portion of what was stolen.

“I’m asking that you consider having Mr. Chambers serve a community sentence with house arrest and propose bi-weekly payments of $500 toward restitution,” Wilhelm said.

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The judge questioned why Chambers hadn’t attempted to make any restitution before his sentencing date if he is able to afford $1,000 a month.

“His conclusion was that if he couldn’t come up with a big chunk of restitution, he felt he was going to jail, so he focused on putting his family in a position for that, as opposed to saving funds for restitution,” said the lawyer.

When invited to speak, Chambers apologized to both the soccer club and the community for breaking their trust in him.

Good dismissed the idea of a community sentence, saying it would be inappropriate for a “sophisticated fraud” and “greedy, opportunistic crime” with more than 1,000 victims.

The judge ordered that, once Chambers is out of jail, he get a job and pay the soccer club $500 a month. When his probation is over, a restitution order for the balance will come into play.

Good also ordered that, for the next five years, Chambers cannot work or volunteer in any capacity where he’ll have authority over property, money or valuable securities.

SGamble@postmedia.com

@EXPSGamble

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