Ott, Baugh plead guilty in fraud case

By Alex Mccuaig
Southern Alberta Newspapers
Two Foremost individuals charged with fraud-related allegations for offences connected to the town’s privately run registry office received conditional sentences Wednesday.
Brock Ott and Angela Baugh both entered guilty pleas to a single count of trafficking in forged documents.
The court heard Baugh was away from the registry office for five days in November 2013 when her employer Ott used her password to access a protected provincial database to process seven licence applications while not authorized to do so.
Baugh’s defence lawyer Stuart Kennedy told the court his client felt compelled to sign off on the paper documents generated by those licence applications and, “if she didn’t do this, her job would be in jeopardy.”
However, that action also lead to her being charged along with Ott.
The court heard a wider Service Alberta investigation into the company uncovered the incident that required seven individuals to reapply for their licences. The registry office has since been closed.
As a part of the pair’s conditional sentence, they were both ordered to make an $800 donation to a Foremost-based charitable organization.