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The Grifter Guardian

Kelowna social worker Robert Riley Saunders faked his credentials, charmed his bosses and stole nearly half a million dollars earmarked for the vulnerable kids in his care.

In 2007, when Beth was six years old, the Kelowna office of British Columbia’s Ministry of Children and Family Development, or MCFD, placed her in foster care while her mother was in a treatment facility for alcoholism. Living in strangers’ homes, she faded into the background. She felt like she was no one’s priority. By the time she was 14, Beth, a member of the Carrier Sekani First Nations, was homeless and couchsurfing with friends and extended family. (Beth is not her real name; I’ve agreed to use a pseudonym to protect her privacy.) Kelowna’s family services appointed Robert Riley Saunders, a social worker who managed care for Indigenous youth, to handle her case. Once a month, Saunders would take her for lunch. He gave her gift cards that she could spend at the mall. “I thought he was a nice, cool person,” she says. Saunders told Beth that she reminded him of his daughter.

One day in 2016, when Beth was 15, Saunders took her to a local branch of Interior Savings Credit Union and told her she needed to open an account. Saunders had done the same thing for Beth’s older brother, whose case he also handled. When Saunders and Beth walked into the branch, they were escorted into a private office. Beth saw that he was holding several cheques made out to her. “I got excited,” she says. “I was like, ‘Are those all for me?’ ”

Saunders chuckled...

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