B.C.’s Supreme Court has ordered the estate of a dead woman to pay UBC $594,680 as a result of her fraud and wage theft.
Justice Matthew Taylor recounted the circumstances of the fraud in his newly released Feb. 23 decision.
He said Wanda Barbara Moscipan was an administrator employed in a dual role by UBC and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA) between 1997 and 2011.
He said the principal UBC claim was that she used her role as a trusted employee of UBC and VCHA during that period to defraud and steal from UBC (in addition to defrauding and stealing from VCHA, which was the subject of a separate action).
She died in 2012 with her husband, Miroslaw Moscipan, being the executor of her estate.
The judge said that, in 2011 a new UBC Department of Obstetrics head, Dr. Geoffrey Cundiff, became suspicious about some of her behaviour and requested an audit of her activities during the period of her dual employment.
The audit’s conclusion was that Moscipan had engaged in various fraudulent actions, including stealing money from a dormant bank account to which she had exclusive access.
It also found she was receiving 180 per cent of a full-time salary and had been giving herself raises for years by forging supervisors’ signatures.
She was fired after the audit.
The judge found she made false representations that she was earning a salary from UBC based on a 20 per cent full-time equivalency job while secretly and dishonestly causing UBC to pay her a salary based on 100 per cent and also submitted falsified time sheets and merit pay increases which caused UBC to overpay her.
“As a result of Ms. Moscipan’s wage theft, Ms. Moscipan (and consequently the estate after her death) was enriched by the amount of $594,680.26,” Taylor said “It would therefore be unjust for the estate to retain property derived from funds that were fraudulently obtained by Ms. Moscipan.”
