Official charged with taking cash to settle community service orders

A northern Saskatchewan court worker accused of taking money to say people had finished their community service hours when they allegedly hadn'tis facing more than 100 fraud-related charges.

Sylvia Grace Joseph, 46, was arrested and thenreleased from police custody and is scheduled to appear in Big River First Nation provincial court on Jan. 13.

Joseph was the official in charge of administering the fine option program for Big River. She no longer works there, the RCMP says.

Under the fine option program, offenders can work off fines by doing community service hours.

The Big River RCMP detachment received a complaint from the provincial government in July 2013 about suspected fraudulent activity.

The main allegation was that money was being solicited from people to settle their court-ordered community service obligations.

Police were not able to say exactly how many people had allegedly paid, but did say more than 80 people were interviewed by investigators.

Joseph now faces 108 Criminal Code charges. They include:

• 17 counts of fraud upon government.
• 28 counts of forgery.
• 31 counts of using a forged document.
• 32 counts of falsifying books and documents.