Former political adviser delays sentencing to hire new lawyer

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This article was published 14/08/2018 (2072 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The sentencing of a former union director and political adviser who admitted to fraud has been delayed.

Heather Grant-Jury, 55, who advised former premier Greg Selinger, has fired the criminal defence lawyers who were handling her case and must now wait for her new lawyer to get up to speed.

She was set to be sentenced Aug. 27 for fraudulently claiming thousands of dollars in credit card expenses over the course of four years while she worked for the United Food and Commercial Workers training centre. Now, that sentencing won’t happen. A new sentencing date hasn’t yet been set.

Defence lawyer Richard Wolson told provincial court Judge Ryan Rolston Wednesday afternoon Grant-Jury had phoned a junior lawyer working on the case to say she was “going to go in a different direction.” Grant-Jury then retained defence lawyer Zilla Jones, who also appeared in court Wednesday to make the change official.

Jones needs to receive all of the Crown’s disclosure in the case before the sentencing can go ahead.

Grant-Jury pleaded guilty to fraud in January for expense claims she filed between May 2011 and December 2015, when the union found out. Using a credit card meant for union educational business, Grant-Jury incurred thousands in charges and lied to the union’s accountant so she could expense them to the union.

Exactly how much money she stole is unclear. Crown prosecutors say it’s about $160,000 in total, but her former defence lawyers had planned to argue it was a much lower amount, and that it should not result in jail time.

Grant-Jury, who was considered a loyal ally to then-premier Selinger, was seconded from her union position to serve as Selinger’s principal secretary after five of his cabinet ministers resigned during a cabinet revolt in November 2014.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay