JUNKIE HAD TO STEAL FOR DOPE

A heroin junkie has admitted defrauding the Workers' Compensation
Board of $1.25 million to feed his drug habit while working as a WCB
case manager.

And now a judge must decide whether Murray Todd Cremer, 47, should be
put behind bars or be allowed to serve his sentence in the community
under house arrest.

Court heard the scam involved Cremer fraudulently reviving two closed
files where he had been the case manager and having cheques issued to
the two former claimants.

One of the claimants was Cremer's brother Robert, who died of a heroin
overdose in 2005, and the other was his first drug dealer, Darryl
Tiffin, who died in 1998 when he was decapitated in a single-vehicle
collision.

According to agreed facts, Cremer defrauded the money between 1996 and
2000, when he suffered a serious stroke.

The fraud was discovered during a 2003 audit which revealed Cremer was
able to pull off the scam due to his knowledge of the WCB system for
payments to claimants.

On one of the bogus files, Cremer was issuing cheques paying out
between $5,000 to $10,000 per week.

In one of those weeks, a $3,730 cheque was issued for room and board,
a $2,683 cheque was issued for mileage and a $3,145 cheque was issued
for bus fare.

To justify such payments, a claimant would have had to drive nearly
10,000 kilometres, take a Greyhound bus to Winnipeg more than 20 times
and be staying somewhere overnight for more than 35 days, all in a
one-week period.

Cremer took the witness stand Thursday at his sentencing hearing and
testified he began stealing money from his employer to feed his heroin
addiction, a habit he said cost him between $300 to $500 per day.

Of the $1.25 million, Cremer said half the money went for drugs and
the balance went to Tiffin and his brother.

"I'm very sorry for what I've done. I think it's terrible," said
Cremer, who began working at the WCB in 1977. "The compensation board
has been very good to me.

"I went insane and lost my moral compass," he continued. "I just
screwed up."

Crown prosecutor Orest Yereniuk argued Cremer should be sentenced to
three years in prison while defence lawyer Alex Pringle asked that a
conditional sentence to be served in the community be imposed.

A decision is slated for Aug. 30.