James Warring Minnie was sentenced to four-and-a-half years at provincial court in Victoria for defrauding the same people twice. (BC Courts)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

twice bitten

Parksville man sentenced for defrauding same investors twice, more than 10 years apart

May 14, 2020 | 4:02 PM

PARKSVILLE — A fraudster had the audacity to first take advantage of investors and then return to the same victims more than a decade later with yet another scam.

Shockingly, it worked.

James Warring Minnie of Parksville was sentenced at provincial court in Victoria on May 8 to four-and-a-half year jail sentence. He’d been charged with two counts of criminal fraud over $5,000 after a lengthy investigation by the BC Securities Commission.

The Commission found Minnie defrauded more than $5,000 from two investors with a scheme involving a non-existant hedge fund based in Venezuela.

Doug Muir, director of enforcement at the Commission, said the investors thought their money would be used to help the hedge fund wind down and they’d recoup their investment once it had closed.

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“In fact, there was no fund, it was all a fiction,” Muir said. “He used the money for his own personal purposes, including upscale restaurants, hotels, liquor and personal expenses.”

Minnie scammed his victims from 2014 to 2016.

He was arrested by the Oceanside RCMP for the crimes in October, 2017 at a resort in Parksville.

Part of his sentence includes not contacting his victims ever again.

Perhaps if such a condition were included in his 2007 conviction for fraud, the most recent incident wouldn’t have happened since it included the same victims.

More than a decade ago Minnie was arrested by Saanich police and convicted for defrauding investors about a false lumber project in Papau New Guinea.

Two of the investors in the 2007 scam were the same two caught up in the 2014 crimes.

Muir said Minnie had actually reached out to the victims and offered his most recent scheme as a way to pay for their previous losses due to his activity.

Minnie will now spend the next eight months in prison, after time-served was taken into consideration.

He’s also ordered to repay the victims more than $540,000.

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