Robert Riley Saunders was accused of embezzling $354,283 from children in foster care after his boss Siobhan Stynes went away on holiday over Christmas in 2017. The government later upped its estimate to more than $460,000.
Internal documents suggest that another social worker stepped in to fill in for Stynes, who would typically be responsible for signing off on Saunders’ paperwork.
It didn’t take Andrea Courtney long to flag problems with Saunders’ documentation, according to a ministry report. Courtney declined an interview for this story, as did Saunders.