NEWS FILE PHOTO
Rolf Traichel is seen here at a Medicine Hat Police Commission meeting in 2014. Traichel was sentenced on Thursday, May 23, 2019 to three years in prison in a fraud case stemming from his time working with the Medicine Hat Cathloic Board of Education.
Rolf Traichel, the disgraced former Medicine Hat Police Commission chair accused of defrauding the local Catholic school board of $1 million, has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to possessing stolen property.
Charges of fraud over $5,000 and money laundering were withdrawn in exchange for his guilty plea.
Traichel appeared before Judge Timothy Hironaka in provincial court Thursday, walking into the prisoner’s box before his sentencing, which includes restitution of $999,000 to paid over four years.
The sentence was part of a joint submission between Traichel’s counsel, John Evans, and special prosecutor Tony Bell.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Traichel — who worked as the Catholic board’s director of IT from 1998-2017 — submitted and approved 203 invoices between September 2010 and December 2016 from a company he owned and controlled without the board’s knowledge.
He charged them for duplicate services, equipment incompatible with their systems and unearned consultancy fees totalling $999,000, which were deposited into his bank account.
Traichel sat on the police commission from 2012-2017, serving as its chair from 2014-2016.
