Bookstore theft loses the fight to exclude found evidence

In 2014, Breanna Flynn, a former financial operations assistant at the Wilfrid Laurier University bookstore, was charged when $31,000 was found missing from the store’s safe.

According to The Record, Flynn has recently lost a fight to exclude evidence that was found in a search of her residence in Elmira.

In September 2014, Flynn was charged with possession of stolen property, as well as theft over $5,000.

When Flynn was later arrested, it was found that she owed approximately $12,000 in taxes.

Justice David A. Broad, Kitchener superior court judge, had written a ruling on Flynn’s application to exclude the evidence.

However, a Waterloo Regional Police officer applied twice to a justice of the peace for a warrant to search Flynn’s house, which was granted the second time.

“I can confirm that Wilfrid Laurier University requested the assistance of Waterloo Regional Police in investigating the disappearance of a quantity of money from the university bookstore on the Waterloo campus,” said Kevin Crowley, communications and public affairs, in a statement made to CTV News Kitchener back in 2014.

As said in The Record, during the search warrant, police found $27,962 in Flynn’s bedroom. After the money was found, Flynn said the cash should be excluded from evidence, as the search warrant should not have been issued and infringed her charter rights to be free of unreasonable search.

Last week, Justice Broad said that the police officer, as stated in the Record, “‘did not deliberately or recklessly mislead’ the justice of the peace who approved the search warrant and ruled the omission ‘did not bear on the merits or substance’ of the search warrant application.”