Gambling led to $1.4M theft

A B.C. lawyer who has pleaded guilty to taking $1.4 million from clients told a judge he could not stop gambling and kept doing so in an attempt to replace money he had taken.

As he took the stand Wednesday during sentencing submissions, Steven Peter Mansfield told Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Donna Senniw that he owed a bookie $200,000 at one point.

The court has already heard he gambled away $60,000 in one weekend.

“I was simply obsessed with gambling,” he said.

Mansfield has pleaded guilty to four counts of theft over $5,000. He had also been charged with four counts of fraud over $5,000. Mansfield pleaded guilty to the four thefts Sept. 11. His lawyer’s licence was revoked in January 2017 for nonpayment of Law Society of B.C. (LSBC) professional fees.

Prosecutor Andrew McLean told Senniw that Dr. Harold Bergman gave Mansfield $350,000 while his friend Sandra Malone contributed $5,000. The money was for investment in a cannabis venture they were sure would be valuable.

And, the stock was valuable. However, Mansfield had not made the investment but had instead used it to pay gambling debts.

From the stand, Mansfield asked for Bergman’s and Malone’s forgiveness.

“I’m very sorry. Everything I’ve done to you is brutal,” Mansfield said. “I’m doing everything I can to make it right.”

“Under no circumstances will I go bankrupt,” he said. “Under no circumstances will I hide from what I have to do.”

Family matter

McLean said Mansfield had acted for Yan Zhang in a family matter in 2016. Mansfield requested $200,000 to be held in his trust account.

“I used that $200,000 to pay off a gambling debt,” he told the court.

And, McLean said, Mansfield had acted for Cynthia Pellegrin in selling her house in 2016.

Despite his lawyer registration having been cancelled, Mansfield got $1,114,876 million from the buyer in January 2017.

“Ms. Pellegrin instructed Mr. Mansfield to discharge the mortgages,” McLean said.

McLean said Pellegrin got a cheque for $186,000 while the rest was to be retained in Mansfield’s trust account for future purchases.

Mansfield then paid out $114,162 to redeem a second mortgage. 

'Excessive gambling'

A further cheque to RBC, a bank, of $489,406 did not clear through his bank.

“I carried on excessive gambling,” he said. “My decision making at the time was to preserve my ability to gamble.”

Pellegrin only found out about the situation when she discovered she was still paying interest on the mortgage, McLean said.

The Crown lawyer said Mansfield took a total of $817,714 from the sale proceeds from his trust account. Pellegrin was compensated from the law society indemnity fund.

Mansfield said he has written to Pellegrin to apologize and ask for her forgiveness.

He said as the situations continued to unfold, his problems worsened and his life became more chaotic as he began to isolate himself more and more from friends and family.

'Never gambled again'

Mansfield said he has done research about gambling addiction and has had counselling to address the issue.

He said when the urge to gamble arose, he could not suppress that urge. Part of that has also involved regular exercise and refocusing his thoughts.

“I realized I could control the urge finally,” he said. “I never gambled again. I conquered it.”

He also testified he knew he needed to come clean about what he had done and cooperated fully with law society investigators and police.