A man accused of siphoning $90,000 from a failed youth hockey trip to Europe may be looking at a second bail hearing after retaining a new lawyer.
Loren Reagan is awaiting trial over charges of theft and fraud over $5,000 and unauthorized operation of a lottery scheme after plans for a youth hockey trip to Europe failed in 2012. His co-accused, Michael Elphicke, was convicted on those same charges in October last year.
In trial, the court heard Reagan and Elphicke had run the now-defunct Okanagan Elite Hockey Association, which had raised more than $180,000 from parents and through raffles run by those parents in late 2011 and early 2012.
Related: Alleged Okanagan hockey fraudster won’t skate free before trial
By mid-January 2012, only $13,000 remained in the OEHA accounts, and a forensic accountant testified that Elphicke and his wife had benefited from under $20,000 of the missing funds. Reagan had allegedly received upwards of $90,000 between himself and the failed hockey dorm project he worked on in Penticton.
Reagan has already been denied bail for those charges after self-representing in a hearing earlier this month, but a publication ban bars releasing details of that hearing.
He is also facing a count of failure to appear pursuant to court order after he skipped his trial, which he was expected to stand alongside Elphicke in September last year.
Related: Alleged hockey fraudster Loren Reagan back in the penalty box
Calgary police arrested Reagan on March 3, and he was transported to Penticton to deal with his legal matters.
In September, his former lawyer, Kim Ross, told the court Reagan was out of the country, reportedly in Kuwait working for an oil company, and notified the court he would be severing his practice from the matter.
Ross is a high-profile defence lawyer from the Calgary area, where Reagan often lives. Among his work, Ross defended Douglas Garland, now convicted of the triple-murder of two grandparents and a five-year-old boy in Calgary in 2014.
Related: Loren Reagan skates off on hockey fraud trial
Reagan is now represented by local defence lawyer Michael Patterson, and his matter was scheduled to appear before the judicial case manager Monday morning for a bail hearing.
Patterson told the Western News he would be reviewing the reasons the judge gave for denying Reagan bail before deciding whether or not to pursue a bail hearing on the failure to appear file.
Typically, the Crown needs to prove why an accused should not be granted bail, but certain charges have a “reverse-onus” applied, which means the defence needs to prove why they should be granted bail. That includes breaches of bail conditions and failing to appear on a court order.
Patterson said the matter would be going before the court again on April 5 for a pre-trial conference.
Related: Elphicke painting Penticton hockey fraud as one-man scam