Redcliff resident pleads guilt to tax evasion; man accused of using CO2 gun in robbery makes court appearance

By Medicine Hat News on January 24, 2025.

@MedicineHatNews

A Redcliff man incarcerated at the Drumheller Institution has pleaded guilty to tax evasion while similar charges against his spouse and company are expected to be dropped.

Leslie Wayne Sands, 44, was also charged last spring with a criminal count of fraud over $5,000 and two counts of making false statements in regard to the Income Tax Act.

On Thursday, defence attorney Greg White told Court of Justice in Medicine Hat that his client would plead guilty to tax evasion and the fraud charge, and requested a sentencing date in April.

Crown Prosecutor Tyler Lord suggested that charges against the other individual and the pair’s company, Flyte Deck, Corp., would be vacated once Sands’s matters are dealt with.

“The Crown’s intent is to withdraw the charges at sentencing,” he told Justice Slyvia Oishi.

She ordered the pleas be recorded and allowed Sands to attend the spring sentencing hearing by closed-circuit television.

Imitation gun

A man accused of using a compressed CO2 pellet gun during downtown robbery on Tuesday morning has made his first appearance in court.

Jeffrey Joseph Jefferies, 38, faces charges of robbery and using an imitation firearm to commit an indictable offence.

In the case of a guilty finding, the later accusation can carry a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

Police say that 4:20 a.m. on Jan. 21, officers were called to the 400 Block of Fifth Avenue in the city centre and were told that a man approached another man before producing a weapon and demanding cash.

Jefferies was arrested in the area a short time later.

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