Accused bank robber had crippling debt, according to Winnipeg court documents

By Peggy Revell on October 25, 2017.

Medicine Hat News

It was a brief first court appearance Tuesday for the Manitoban accused of robbing two banks in Medicine Hat — while court documents from Winnipeg reveal he was battling depression, facing crippling debt and was the subject of a protection order earlier this year.

Stephen Vogelsang, 53, remains in custody, appearing in person before the Medicine Hat provincial court, with Lethbridge-based defence lawyer Greg White acting as an agent. The matter was adjourned until Oct. 26, for a possible bail hearing.

Vogelsang was arrested Saturday by Medicine Hat police following two bank robberies on Thursday and Friday. In both cases, a man entered the banks, demanded money, and then left with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Police in Regina are investigating potentially similar offences in that city, say MHPS.

Vogelsang was a journalism instructor at Red River College in Winnipeg from 2002 until 2011. Before that, he worked as a sports anchor at CKY — now CTV Winnipeg — before becoming news director.

Court documents obtained by the Canadian Press in Winnipeg show Vogelsang and his then-wife lost $85,000 on the sale of three properties in Vernon, B.C., where they lived between 2011 and 2014. They purchased a $540,000 home when they returned to Winnipeg.

After the couple divorced in December 2016, payments were being missed on the house and they argued over whether to sell it at a loss.

Vogelsang rejected the idea and said he could not afford any more debt.

“I have been staying in my truck regularly,” Vogelsang wrote in a Sept. 17 email to his ex-wife. “I cannot afford groceries so whatever food I have left … will have to tide me over until I get to (friends’), then I’ll steal food from them until I get an EI payment on Tuesday.”

The court documents show Vogelsang had struggled to find steady work in recent years. In one email to his ex-wife last year, he talked of being on disability for chronic depression twice in a five-year period.

His ex-wife said in an affidavit that Vogelsang had forged her signature on a mortgage-renewal, and that foreclosure on the Winnipeg home was looming.

Vogelsang also had an ex-girlfriend who was granted a protection order in March. She said Vogelsang had become emotionally and verbally abusive and would not leave her alone after their relationship ended in August 2016.

One time, she said Vogelsang left notes for her in a plastic bag in the parking lot of her apartment building.

“I made it very clear to Steve to stop talking to me, stop communicating and (I) didn’t want a relationship,” said the woman — a former student of Vogelsang’s — in court transcripts of the March hearing.

“He continued — whether it was through work, whether it was at home — to try to get a hold of me.”

Vogelsang filed an affidavit after the protection order was issued that said his ex-girlfriend “has repeatedly misled police in an attempt to discredit me.”

(With files from The Canadian Press)

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