Brandon Harder
Regina Leader-Post
After a judge ordered that Alena Marie Pastuch will be given yet another court-appointed lawyer on Tuesday, the future of the Regina woman who pleaded guilty to stealing millions from investors remains unclear.
In June 2019, Pastuch was convicted on charges of fraud, theft and money laundering after a trial in which she represented herself without a lawyer.
The charges were related to an investment scheme that played out over the course of about seven years, beginning in 2006.
In August of 2019, she was sentenced to seven years in prison.
But a subsequent appeal argued that, among other things, she shouldn’t have been denied what then would have been a third court-appointed lawyer, leaving her to defend herself.
Saskatchewan’s highest court ruled she should not have been required to represent herself and a new trial was ordered.
That new trial never went ahead as Pastuch entered a plea of guilty to theft over $5,000. It was well over $5000, according to Crown prosecutor Dana Brule, who quoted a total of $4,940,218
In September 2024, Brule and Pastuch’s then-lawyer Chris Murphy put forward a joint submission that a three-and-a-half year sentence would be appropriate.
After receiving credit for time spent on remand, on bail and in jail awaiting an appeal, it would have left Pastuch with two years remaining on the sentence.
Justice Catherine Dawson was expected to deliver a decision on sentence but, in March, the judge granted Pastuch an adjournment to arrange medical appointments and get a new lawyer. Murphy was allowed to drop the case, citing “a breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship.”
The Crown’s concerns
On Tuesday, Dawson approved Pastuch’s application for another court-appointed lawyer, despite concerns raised by Brule.
He said among the Crown’s concerns was whether Pastuch met the financial criteria for a court-appointed lawyer, given that one of her past lawyers suggested she’d been working amid previous court proceedings.
Court-appointed lawyers are paid for by the government but only offered to people who can’t afford one.
Brule also said the Crown was concerned about whether the current legal issues facing Pastuch were complex enough to warrant a lawyer being appointed.
The judge was not swayed.
However, Dawson had already indicated that the appointment of the lawyer would relate only to sentencing and associated applications.
It would not “extend to the appointment of counsel to conduct a trial or an appeal,” she said.
Pastuch’s next move unclear
The judge said she wasn’t sure whether Pastuch intended on bringing an application to abandon the previous sentencing agreement “or something more broad.”
“We need to move this forward in a timely way,” Dawson remarked.
Pastuch’s new lawyer, Christina Skibinsky, told the judge she had been waiting for the court’s decision about whether she’d be appointed before acting on her client’s behalf.
Skibinsky said she would like to obtain case information from the Crown, along with a transcript of what was said at the sentencing hearing where the joint submission was put forward.
“I don’t want to commit to an actual application date when I’m not quite sure what the application will be,” she said.
“Definitely, there’s lots of talk of. Do we need an expert witness? Do we reopen the, you know, sentencing, taking a look at what exactly was done? But I just need to review that.”
The judge arranged for a phone conference in May to check in with lawyers and to schedule a date in June to hear an application from Pastuch.
bharder@postmedia.com
