News arising from court in Kindersley on May 23:

Anna Mae Amugod has pleaded guilty to several fraud charges and she has received a sentence of six months in prison after appearing in provincial court last week.

Amugod was working at the Nova Inn Kindersley at the time of the fraud. The hotel is owned and operated by Nova Hotels, a family-owned company based in Edmonton, and the fraud involved Aeroplan points. Court was told Nova Hotels is a small company, so it pays a fee to allow guests to collect Aeroplan points for stays.

Court heard Amugod was hired to work the front desk at the Nova Inn. Over a roughly two-year period from October 2013 to June 2015, Amugod created the identities of six people and she had Aeroplan cards for each individual. The identities included her family members in Toronto.

If a hotel guest did not have an Aeroplan card, the accused would use one of the six fraudulent cards to collect Aeroplan points after the guest paid for the room. The prosecutor said Aeroplan and the hotel’s bookkeeper eventually noticed the anomalies.

See more on this story in the May 31 print edition of The Clarion.