Disgraced financial planner Robert L. Dickson did not have to spend the Christmas holidays in jail.
With about 90 minutes to go before his sentencing at the Ontario Court of Justice in Perth on Wednesday, Dec. 19, attorneys approached Justice John Waugh to ask for the case to be remanded to Monday, May 27, 2013.
The Carleton Place resident had been scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 18, but Waugh adjourned sentencing after a morning of emotional victim impact statements.
Dickson has plead guilty to theft over $1,000, uttering a forged document, fraud under $1,000, falsifying/destroying books, and false accounting/deceiving.
Crown attorney Kimberly Moore had requested that Dickson serve between six and 12 months in jail, followed by three years probation, and that a restitution order be made against him.
Defence attorney Richard Knott, however, requested two-years-less-a-day of a conditional sentence, followed by three years probation, so Dickson can continue to work to pay off his debt to his victim’s family.
Dickson stole about $103,000 from Catherine Fraser, from 1995 to 2010. For a portion of this time, Fraser was suffering from dementia. Dickson has paid back about $12,000 as of Oct. 18, with another cheque for $5,000 presented to the court that same day, to go towards restitution, bringing the outstanding amount to about $87,000.
Fraser died in March of 2010.