The former B.C. legislature clerk received his sentence Friday in a Vancouver court for breach of trust in the improper purchase of clothing with public funds.
Craig James was given a three-month suspended sentence.
He will spend one month under house arrest. In the second and third months, James has a nighttime curfew of 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. and will also have to pay $1,886.72 in a restitution order, which is the amount for the clothing she misrepresented as work wear.
James will also pay an additional $200 victim surcharge. “A conditional discharge would be contrary to the public interest and would not adequately condemn the conduct or deter others,” Judge Heather Holmes said.
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Craig James was found guilty in May, while British Columbia Supreme Court Assistant Chief Justice Heather Holmes also found him not guilty of three other charges, including one related to a $258,000 pension payout.
At Friday’s sentencing, Holmes said that while James had violated the public trust “in its very essence,” mitigating factors included the low dollar value and the “biting media coverage” he faced.
Crown prosecutor Brock Martland previously argued that James must be jailed for a year or serve house arrest and also pay $1,886 in restitution.
He said the sentence would represent an “unequivocal denunciation” by the court and deter future officials from misusing public money.
Read more: Craig James lawsuit — B.C. employee says she saw no justification for predecessor’s pension
Defense attorney Gavin Cameron asked the court to give James 12 months probation and a suspended sentence.
Cameron said James faced stigma due to media coverage and was “tried and convicted in the court of public opinion” long before the court handed down a verdict.
Former Legislature Speaker Daryl Plekas, whose own investigation uncovered the allegations against James, said a prison sentence would have sent a stronger message, but he understood where the judge was coming from. “He’s a guy who’s lost his lifetime appointment and the $357,000 a year that went with it,” he said.
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103-114 “I think it would probably be very difficult for him to get any kind of work, otherwise it would be pretty much what he had before, especially now that he has a criminal record.”
1:32 The sentencing of a former secretary of the British Columbia legislature begins. The sentencing of a former secretary of the British Columbia legislature begins
With files from Canadian Press.
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