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A Nova Scotia woman who used fake names, claimed a fake university degree and even claimed a fake child has been sentenced to 4½ years in prison for various fraud convictions.
Katherine MacDougall, who was also known as Alissa MacGillivray or Alexandra Ryan, appeared in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax Thursday morning for sentencing.
She had earlier pleaded guilty to fraud, forgery and offences under the Income Tax Act.
When she worked at a Kent Building Supply store, she told co-workers her daughter had died. She also claimed that her mother, stepfather and sister had died, according to an agreed statement of facts that are part of the court record.
She took paid bereavement leave and her co-workers donated $1,500 out of their own pockets to her. Their employer also matched those funds.
However, MacDougall’s daughter is still alive and there is no evidence any of the other relatives had died during the period she claimed.
“Certainly at Kent there was a wide amount of support for her from good people who all put money into this pool to support her,” prosecutor Will Mathers said outside court.
“If you count all the minimum-wage employees who put together chunks of their paycheque for her, it’s quite a number of people who were ensnared.”
In one of her scams, MacDougall tried to claim child support from a man for a child who did not exist. She had managed to manufacture documents, including fake DNA reports, in an effort to ensnare him.
“Very little, if any, of her stories were true,” Justice James Chipman said in his sentencing decision.
At one point, the judge instructed MacDougall to remove her hands from her face. He said he was concerned she might be covering her ears. She entered court hunched over and wearing a heavy winter coat with the hood up, completely obscuring her face from people in the courtroom.
Mathers said MacDougall continued lying through the sentencing process, telling the author of her pre-sentence report that she has a bachelor of science degree from Dalhousie University. She attended the school, but did not graduate.
Chipman described MacDougall’s offences at the “highest end of the scale” as part of a “serious and substantial record.”
“This was quite unique,” Mathers said. “It took an incredible amount of police resources and Crown resources to put this together and I’ve personally never seen anything like it.”
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