Former Gilbert Plains CAO pleads guilty to theft charge

WINNIPEG — A former municipal official already found civilly liable for stealing more than $500,000 from community coffers has now admitted criminal responsibility for her actions.

Amber Fisher, the former chief administrative officer for the Municipality of Gilbert Plains, pleaded guilty in a Winnipeg court Friday to one count of theft over $5,000.

But while Fisher admitted spending the stolen money, she continues to claim it was deposited into her account by someone else.

That claim will be the subject of a court hearing in Dauphin next spring, Crown attorney Peter Edgett told provincial court Judge Malcolm McDonald.

“At that hearing, the Crown intends to prove that not only did Ms. Fisher use the money, but she was part of the process that led to the money going from the municipality into her bank account,” Edgett said.

Fisher was fired in November 2022 after a report by accounting firm MNP found she had transferred approximately $532,000 from the municipality to her bank account.

Council members were alerted by the municipality’s credit union in July 2021 that “substantial transactions” were detected transferring money from its account into Fisher’s, an agreed statement of facts filed with the court says.

The credit union froze Fisher’s access to municipality bank accounts and she was suspended from work pending an investigation.

A week later, Fisher emailed a letter to two municipal councillors “in which the accused provided a false explanation in (an) effort to explain away the concerns raised by (the credit union),” says the agreed statement of facts.

“After meeting with my bank today, it has come to light that there have been deposits going into an account in my name without my knowledge,” she wrote. “When I heard this, I dropped and became physically sick. I can’t even begin to explain how I feel right now.”

In later messages, Fisher claimed a cyberattack made it look like she was a thief and that a fraud investigation had been launched that would clear her name.

“Both of these claims were lies,” says the agreed statement of facts.

Fisher was allowed to return to work a few days later after assuring council members the missing money had been recovered and was being held in trust by the credit union, pending the completion of the non-existent fraud investigation.

In the months that followed, Fisher provided councillors with false fraud investigation reports and, in May 2024, pretended to be the writer of one of the reports during a council meeting held over Zoom.

The investigation by MNP later found the alleged fraud reports had been created on Fisher’s work computer.

In an interview with MNP auditors in September 2022, Fisher admitted she spent the money deposited into her account and that she fabricated the story of the cyberattack, as well as the fraud reports.

Fisher has repaid the municipality approximately $17,000.

The Municipality of Gilbert Plains filed a lawsuit against Fisher in August 2023. Last fall, a Manitoba court ordered a default judgment against her in the amount of nearly $550,000 after she failed to defend herself against the lawsuit. Weeks before that ruling, the court ordered that her wages be garnisheed.

The maximum sentence for theft over $5,000 is 10 years in prison.

» Winnipeg Free Press