Three of four men plead guilty in Toonoonik caper

SEAN McKIBBON & MICHAELA RODRIGUE

IQALUIT — It was during a night of drinking at the Legion with a fellow worker at the Toonoonik Hotel that Nelson Tardif decided to steal a safe loaded with more than $373,000 in cash and cheques from his employer.

Tardif, 30, along two other former Toonoonik Hotel employees, were sentenced last week for their respective roles in the theft.

Tardif pleaded guilty to one count of theft over $5,000, and one count of possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to two years less a day in jail, and three years of probation.

Danny Menard, 23, also pleaded guilty to one count of theft over $5,000 and possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to one year in jail and three years probation.

Marc Thompson pleaded guilty to one count of theft over $5,000 and possession of stolen goods. He received two months in a jail and a two years probation order for his crimes.

The Crown relied upon two incriminating statements Tardif made to police, statements from Menard and Thompson, from a girlfriend of another man charged in connection with the incident, and from a Toonoonik staff member who wasn’t involved in the crime but was awakened by noise created by the safe-stealing shenanigans.

The statements don’t exactly match, but are pretty close, said Crown prosecutor Richard Meredith.

At Tardif’s sentencing hearing last week, Meredith outlined all of the various accounts for the court. He described for the court how Tardif and another Toonoonik employee left the Iqaluit’s Royal Canadian Legion and headed over to the Toonoonik Hotel in the early hours of Jan. 9.

When the two men arrived at the hotel, one of them chatted with the security guard on duty that night and, while the guard was distracted, Tardif snuck into the hotel’s main office where the safe is kept, Meredith said.

There was no trace of forced entry or damage in the office, he said.

Tardif put the safe in the back of his co-worker’s pick-up truck and then went back inside the hotel to ask his buddy for a ride.

Once the safe was in the truck the pair drove to the Toonoonik staff house, building 1603, where Meredith said a number of attempts were made to open the safe.

Tardif awakened Menard to help him with the safe. He finally enlisted the help of Thompson, who managed to open the safe with a hammer and screwdriver.

Meredith told the court that Menard then split the money into four bundles of about $3,000 each at a different location. While the safe contained close to $360,000 in cheques, the thieves were only able to lay their hands on about $15,000 in cash, Meredith said.

“They wouldn’t have been able to do too much with the cheques,” he said.

Tardif and Mendard then transported the safe by truck to the bridge in Apex. Theret he men threw the safe into the frozen river, spilling papers, keys and cheques all around the area, Meredith said.

Once the theft was discovered by the hotel manager, Mark McDowell, on Jan. 9, police were called in to investigate. McDowell told police he had seen Tardif and another man walking toward the hotel.

After interviewing the other man McDowell had seen at the Toonoonik, and the man’s girlfriend, police began searching for Nelson Tardif.

RCMP constables Mario Vachon and Alain Trudeau spotted him riding in a Toonoonik pickup truck that was pulling into Arctic Ventures and arrested him. After getting a statement from Tardif they arrested three other men.

Miraculously, police were able to retrieve all of the missing cheques and cash, Meredith said.

In imposing Tardif’s sentence, Judge Rene Foisy said the degree of pre-meditation in the crime was subjective, but said that Tardif was the main actor in all stages of the crime.

He said the fact that Tardif was still on probation from a previous conviction when the crime was committed was an aggravating factor, and that his lengthy criminal record was also an aggravating factor.

Mitigating the offence were Tardif’s co-operation with police, the fact he and his partner have a child, that the money was retrieved, and that Tardif had been held in custody since Jan. 9.

Police have also charged Marc Dion, 29, with theft over $5,000 and possession. He is scheduled to appear in court on April 3.