Bre McAdam
StarPhoenix
When Alexander Alexidze saw Saskatoon police officers at the door of his Fairhaven neighbourhood apartment, the first thing he said was “How did you find me?”
For two years, the 49-year-old, also known as Alexander Row, had been using at least 19 aliases, created to defraud the provincial government ministries of social services and health.
He’d received $150,085.76 in payments, Crown prosecutor Carol Carlson said during Alexidze’s provincial court sentencing hearing on July 24.
Alexidze pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 and was sentenced as part of a joint submission to two years less a day in jail. He had 57 days left to serve after an enhanced remand credit was applied to his sentence.
Court heard the investigation began in January 2023 after Alexidze left the Riverbend Co-op in Outlook with $300 in stolen groceries, giving a false promise to the manger that he would return with a receipt after he was confronted outside the store.
According to the facts presented in court, RCMP discovered the Ford Expedition he was driving was a rental registered to a name with an address in Saskatoon. Police would later learn the fake name belonged to Alexidze.
An arrest warrant was issued for the theft. In March 2023, a social services fraud investigator in British Columbia reached out to Saskatoon police about Alexidze, who was accused of using seven fake names to apply for income assistance, Carlson said.
When police ran the aliases, some matched the names in the Outlook arrest warrant. The vehicle registration photo also matched Alexidze’s photo.
Police arrested him at his apartment on Pendygrasse Road in Saskatoon on May 14, 2023. They seized several documents, including a notebook filled with names, addresses, social insurance numbers and birthdates.
While the identities were fake, the social insurance numbers belonged to real people, Carlson told court.
Police contacted Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Social Services. It had 19 income assistance applications associated with Alexidze.
Carlson said Alexidze had tricked the system; the applicants he created never personally attended ministry appointments.
“The ministry did indicate that they had listened back to a number of taped conversations with several of these named individuals, and they believed that the same person had been speaking to the ministry employees,” she told court.
Judge Bruce Bauer said Alexidze used a “deliberate and sophisticated plan” to exploit the online reporting system created during the pandemic and a weakness in the government’s security system to get an average monthly payment of $6,000 — considerably more than people entitled to income support receive.
He got $144,282.29 in social services payments and $5,803 in health services including medications, Carlson said, adding Alexidze primarily used the money for living expenses.
Defence lawyer Ian Wagner said his client suffers from a “social phobia” that makes it difficult for him to work. He was employed at Instacart and plans to continue working there once he receives his work permit, Wagner said.
Court heard that Alexidze, a national from the Eastern European country of Georgia, sought refugee status in Canada in 1999. He received a nine-month jail term for committing identity fraud in the United States and was deported back to Canada in 2016.
Between 2013 and 2022, Alexidze was convicted of several counts of theft, fraud and identity fraud, Carlson said.
“So obviously this is a pattern of behaviour.”
Wagner said Alexidze has no relatives in Canada, but has family in the U.S. who can help him pay a $10,000 restitution order within seven months of his release from jail.
He isn’t currently under a deportation threat, but that could change, Wagner said. Court heard a pending deportation warrant was previously cancelled in 2020.
“A theft from the government is a theft from every citizen,” and when people pay taxes, they want to know their money is used properly, Bauer said in accepting the joint sentencing submission.
Appearing by video from custody, Alexidze said he will try his best to move forward “the right way.”
