A police officer from the York Regional Police Service was fired for benefits fraud, two years after pleading guilty and being suspended with pay.
In the original hearing in December 2015, first class constable Salwa Husseini was given seven days to resign from her position, or face termination after submitting fraudulent claims to her benefits provider. Husseini appealed the decision, citing the penalty was excessive and inconsistent with rulings given to other officers guilty of benefits fraud. Husseini noted her co-operation with the investigation, testimonies of character witness and the fact she had paid plan administrator Sun Life back the amount she had defrauded from them.
Husseini was finally terminated in February 2017 after adjudicators determined Husseini had been with the York Regional Police Service for less than two years before she began defrauding it and the time period did not constitute a long enough history of good service to be a mitigating factor.
Husseini had submitted 15 fraudulent claims to Sun Life and was arrested on two counts of fraud under $5,000 and two counts of uttering a forged document contrary to the Criminal Code in October 2014. In February 2015, she pled guilty to one count of fraud, the remaining charges were withdrawn.
Read more at Benefits Canada
