'Crime pays': Victim astonished at early release of disgraced P.E.I. funeral director

Lowell Oakes, a former P.E.I. funeral director convicted of defrauding clients out of money for pre-paid funerals, is out on parole, and one of his victims says the tiny community of Crapaud is in shock.

"I couldn't believe it," said Debbie Matters.

"Here's someone who has stolen over $425,000 from friends and neighbours, including my parents, and he gets six months in jail and that's it. It feels like crime pays."

Matters said others in the community have expressed that same sentiment to her.

Oakes, the former owner of Dawson Funeral Home, was sentenced in March to two years minus a day in jail. That followed his conviction on 66 counts of fraud, 36 of which were for fraud over $5,000. RCMP found cases that went back as far as 1996. Oakes told his victims the money was going into a trust, as required by law, but the trusts were never created.

According to the Parole Board of Canada document on the decision to release him, the money Oakes defrauded was lost to a gambling addiction.

"Gambling has led to the depletion of your personal funds, led to financial hardship, and [you] resorted to crime for financial gain to compensate," the document said.

The release of Oakes at this point in his sentence is not unusual.

Full parole is available in Canada after one-third of a sentence has been served, which in Oakes's case is about eight months.

Day parole is available six months before that, with a minimum requirement that six months be served.

What is unusual in the Oakes case is that his day parole does not require him to return to the Provincial Correctional Centre every night. The parole board determined he could serve his day parole at his home, where he would return to living with his wife.

"The Board is satisfied that a release on day parole to [another] location offers the necessary structure, stability, and emotional and financial support from a close family member that can serve as protective factors and ensure a controlled return in the community," the board decision says.

It is Oakes's largely unrestricted presence in the community that people find most shocking, said Matters.

"They find it hard to believe that he's actually out and back in the community and not even under house arrest," she said.