Dr. Alicija [Ellen] Jastrebske

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

The Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench has just released a new and very important decision, R. v. Jastrebske, 2013 SKQB 150, that relates to sentencing of persons who adopt ideas that reject/negate government control. The tale also has a number of interesting twists. Alicija Jastrebske was found guilty by jury of fraud in excess of $5000, specifically that she had concealed assets prior to her 2006 bankruptcy that could have been made available to cover outstanding debts to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Justice Laing reports that Dr. Jastrebske was a retired, 67 year old psychology professor who lost $500,000 in an uncharacterized fraud. She then declared bankruptcy but had retained certain concealed off-shore assets. At her fraud trial she appears to have advanced OPCA tactics, without success.

The reported decision relates to her sentencing. Dr. Jastrebske continued to advance OPCA techniques, specifically that the criminal proceeding was some kind of contractual arrangement, that she had discharged her ‘debt’, and that state authority could only be directed at a non-human avatar of herself; she seems to have used ‘trust/trustee’ type language.

The Crown initially suggested a 6 month conditional sentence would be appropriate, but Dr. Jastrebske’s conduct and expressed anti-state beliefs led to a different result. Instead she received a 5 month prison sentence. Justice Liang observes at paras. 15-16:

Ms. Jastrebske would normally be a candidate for a conditional sentence as the range of sentence is well below the two years less a day, she is a first‑time offender, and there is no evidence to suggest the safety of the community would be in danger if Ms. Jastrebske served her sentence in the community. However, one of the requirements for the imposition of a conditional sentence is that pointed out in Laliberte, supra, at para. 27, is whether the offender is likely to abide by such an order.

…

If the court had wished to exercise its contempt power, it could have done so a number of times in the course of the trial, and Ms. Jastrebske was in fact cautioned twice in this respect in the absence of the jury as a result of remarks made by her to the court that were outrageous, but in the end result I decided it was better to get the trial over with without “adding fuel to the fire”. Ms. Jastrebske’s conduct and statements during the sentencing hearing, and her two most recent communications in the adjournment period referred to above are consistent with her conduct and statements during trial, and are more than enough for me to conclude that Ms. Jastrebske will not abide by the terms of a conditional sentence order. The result is a fit sentence requires a period of incarceration.

So a bit of exposition on this result. In Canada an offender who receives a sentence of less than two years can usually serve that sentence under a form of house arrest, though this is not available for certain violent and sexual offences, and typically is ordered for offenders who have no or a limited criminal record, and are not a risk to the community. Statistically, this approach to criminal sanction has proven effective in dealing with first-time criminals, particularly younger offenders.

As Justice Liang observes, it is very unusual that an older, first-time fraud offender would receive a custodial sentence, but here this was appropriate because the offender refused to renounce OPCA tactics and beliefs. This result is very significant, because this decision provides a clear precedent that persons who adopt Sovereign Citizen/Freeman-on-the-Land type ideas and approaches can expect to go straight to jail and not receive a more graduated corrective response. This, incidentally, parallels a developing approach to reject pre-trial bail release for persons who espouse these beliefs. The Courts are taking a very firm approach.

Justice Liang reports at para. 4 that he attempted to use the Meads v. Meads decision as an educational tool, but it just didn’t stick. My suspicion is that Dr. Jastrebske would have been more likely to succumb if only A.C.J. Rooke had embraced footnotes...

I did some poking around and found out a little more about Dr. Jastrebske and her activities. She is the subject of a much older decision, Jastrebske v. St. Thomas More College, 2001 SKQB 577, where she appears to be suing to stop the institution at which she taught from 'stealing her wages', ie. collecting income tax. This decision’s language and her use of the ‘dash-colon’ name motif indicates that by this point Dr. Jastrebske had already adopted OPCA concepts.

A number of her documents may be viewed online:

• http://www.nationalrepublicregistry.com ... 000001.pdf
  
  http://www.nationalrepublicregistry.com ... 000002.pdf
  
  http://www.nationalrepublicregistry.com ... 000003.pdf

All three appear quite recent (at least post-bankruptcy), and are clearly influenced by Sovereign Citizen concepts. I am not seeing the specific language I associate with Freemen-on-the-Land, but they too can be a somewhat variable bunch. I’d love to hear any comments on these documents, and anyone’s observations on who may have been the probable influences on Dr. Jastrebske.

On a very strange note, while searching for more about her I discovered what appear to be Nigerian Scam type emails originating from an address with her real name. Here is the text of one such email:

GOOD DAY

My name is Dr. Alicija Jastrebske,I was born on 12th of June 1944,I AM Sixty Seven years old (67years).

I am from Canada my late husband is a citizen of your country his name is Joseph Brown ,please pardon the way i have contact u unknown/or email,but i am so sick old and weary and can not go out to the street to find somebody but i believe that through you others people will benefit from his fund. Since i did not know any of my husband family in your country again, we have not trave to your country since 40 years ago, and he was trying to locate his only sister 10 years ago and he was told that she had died. Since then we have not visit or travel to your country. That is why i am looking for any person national to transfer my late husband money to since my late husband is a citizen in your country.

We are married for 40 years before his sudden death,i inherited my late husband wealth $2,700,000 million dolar, i am suffering from overspread cancer problem, i am afraid to die leaving my late husband wealth unclaimed, due to the fact that i lost my 28 years old son and my husband in car accident when they both travel for a business meeting in Ontario Canada, while i was at the hospital in Quebec Canada for radiation and chemotherapy surgery as result of overspread cancer tumor in my body. I want you to help me withdraw this fund as my beneficiary, i want this money to go to your country where my husband come from, so that my spirit can have peace when i died, if i fail to do anything now, this money will go to Canada government since i have no next of kin and i have no time since the doctor told me i have just three weeks to before i die because of my old age and overspread cancer.

I will give you more details immediately as soon as i hear from you. You can send your reply to this email ( dr.alicijajastrebske1944@gmail.com )

My God bless you.
Dr. Alicija Jastrebske.

Finally, I was curious about her academic history. She appears to have previously self-identified as Ellen Jastrebske, and had indeed published in well recognized and refereed journals. Working principally from abstracts, it seems one of her foci was cognitive dissonance, and the influence of peer groups on belief! For example:

Ellen M. Jastrebske, Brendan Gail Rule, Effects of group variance and advocated position on conformity, Journal of Personality, Volume 38, Issue 4, pages 550–559, December 1970 [her master’s thesis subject]

ELLEN M. JASTREBSKE (1974) DISSONANCE, KNOWLEDGE ABOUT CONSEQUENCES, AND TASK EXPERIENCE. Psychological Reports: Volume 34, Issue , pp. 471-477.

Jastrebske, Ellen M., DISSONANCE, SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES AND METHODS OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, Volume 4, Number 1, 1976 , pp. 81-90(10)

E. M. JASTREBSKE (1982) CONFORMITY AS A FUNCTION OF SEMANTIC WORDING AND DIRECTION OF PEERS' OPINIONS. Psychological Reports: Volume 51, Issue , pp. 19-26.

A curious and sad case. I can't think of another instance where I have encountered an academic who adopted these ideas. This woman has lost her life's savings and then the last decade and a half of her life pursuing fraudulent concepts and where her days were probably dominated by conspiratorial paranoia. Her apparent change in name hints to me that something was up, and that led her to a different path. However, I cannot suggest what that might be.

SMS Möwe

[notorial dissent]

Was there anything specific as to what the "uncharacterized fraud" was?

I almost wonder, considering her age, if prior conditions and age hadn't contributed to her current state of "DISSONANCE". She sounds like some elderly people I have known who suddenly develop major personality changes, almost out of the blue as it were. As otherwise she doesn't quite seem the type.

[wserra]

I’d love to hear any comments on these documents, and anyone’s observations on who may have been the probable influences on Dr. Jastrebske.

http://www.nationalrepublicregistry.com ... 000001.pdf

The first document in this set appears to be the Canadian equivalent of what we in the U.S. call a "UCC-1" - a filed document that constitutes notice that the named property is subject to a security interest from a creditor of its owner. As you may well know, we see sovrun types here filing UCC-1s on their own property (and on themselves, something even more ridiculous) all the time. US law is that you cannot have a security interest in your own property, so these things do nothing at all. We also see the "revocation of powers of attorney" stuff frequently; it comes from the school of sovrunty that everything is a matter of contract, so you can somehow "revoke" your "consent" to government.

http://www.nationalrepublicregistry.com ... 000002.pdf

This thing appears to be her version of a combination of the ideas that: (1) one can "refuse for cause" criminal charges, and thus they go away, and (2) one can publish some bullshit and, unless it is "refuted", it magically comes to pass. We see this stuff all the time, too. See "Van Pelt, David Merrill". Amazing how it never works. Just goes to show the violence inherent in the system.

http://www.nationalrepublicregistry.com ... 000003.pdf

A quick perusal of this stuff indicates that Jastrebske may have had a valid claim here, but likely pissed it away by trying to be a sovrun. Of course, all of this stuff is "filed" with the "National Republic Registry", an act which does nothing at all. As their own small print notes, "NATIONAL REPUBLIC REGISTRY does not communitcate (sic) with any government agency nor are they equivalent to any government agency". They might as well continue: "In fact, we're only useful to sovrun nitwits who want to think they've accomplished something".

Sad case, especially since it doesn't seem as though Jastrebske is a promoter.

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

Was there anything specific as to what the "uncharacterized fraud" was?

In brief, no. The sentencing judge simply observes:

Her pension money was in excess of $500,000.00 and she invested it directly with a fraudster who absconded with most of it.

I dug around a bit to see if I could find more on that point, but had no success. I suspect the only way we will learn more about this woman is if a media reporter decides to dig further into the scenario. Dr. Jastrebske has apparently almost no web presence.

wserra: Thank you for the analysis - very much appreciated!

I'd love to know who had set Dr. Jastrebske on this unfortunate path, but at this point it's pretty hard to tell. This predates Porisky, so it's not him. I know there were a number of DeTaxer promoters operating in western Canada during this period, including Eldon-Gerald: Warman and David-Kevin: Lindsay.

SMS Möwe

[notorial dissent]

Thank you. The loss of that much money would certainly be enough reason to unhinge soemone.

[Burnaby49]

Was there anything specific as to what the "uncharacterized fraud" was?

In brief, no. The sentencing judge simply observes:

Her pension money was in excess of $500,000.00 and she invested it directly with a fraudster who absconded with most of it.

I dug around a bit to see if I could find more on that point, but had no success. I suspect the only way we will learn more about this woman is if a media reporter decides to dig further into the scenario. Dr. Jastrebske has apparently almost no web presence.

wserra: Thank you for the analysis - very much appreciated!

I'd love to know who had set Dr. Jastrebske on this unfortunate path, but at this point it's pretty hard to tell. This predates Porisky, so it's not him. I know there were a number of DeTaxer promoters operating in western Canada during this period, including Eldon-Gerald: Warman and David-Kevin: Lindsay.

SMS Möwe

I'm going to take a wild stab at this and make a guess that the one of the cases in the links below, or a case very much like them, may have been the way she lost her pension. The scheme in the links was claimed to be a way to get money out of pension plans tax-free. Mostly the suckers were civil servants (teachers, firemen, police, etc) with defined benefit pension plans. An actuary came up with the bright idea of incorporating a shell company for each individual sucker that claimed to be an operating company. The company then set up a fake employee pension plan. When the individual retired they chose not to collect their pension but instead claimed to be an employee of the shell company and instructed their old employer to transfer their interest in their pension plan to the purported pension plan in the shell company as a single lump-sum payment based on the actuarial value of the pension at the transfer date. Canadian government pension plans are portable and can be transfered tax free to other pension plans, my wife did it three times during her career. This got the money out of the government plan and into a company 100% controlled by a third party. Supposedly this got the pension money into the hands of the pensioner tax free. Two problems;

1 - The plan didn't work legally because it was a scam that didn't fit within the pension transfer rules. so the pensioners were hit with income tax on the full amount of the lump sum on the day it was transferred. So the teacher in 1346687 ONTARIO INC., far from getting her money out tax-free, was hit with a tax bill on the entire $564,478.56 lump sum payment. I won't get into the technical issues of why it didn't work, anyone interested can read the decisions.

2 - Some of the participants apparently invested the money rashly once it was in the shell company and lost it, maybe fraud involved. However this did not eliminate the tax debt on the lump-sum transfer.

As I said, just a guess but this plan was popular amongst teachers. Apparently they thought themselves smart enough to understand a very high-risk technically complex tax scheme.


http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fca/doc/200 ... ca263.html

http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fca/doc/200 ... ca262.html

[notorial dissent]

Burnaby49, thanks, that actually makes a great deal of sense in relation to the rest of this now, and I can definitley see how that would tend to unhinge someone just a bit.

I don't know if I actually remember hearing about a similar case down here, but I do know it happened with "real" companies where they got you to transfer your retirement accounts in to their retirement set up and then the companies themselves went south with the money, leaving the retirees high and dry. The "legal" as well as illegal looting of big company pension plans was big business down here for a while, and it really isn't much of a step to go from that to setting up a shell company and a shell pension plan and doing the same with someone else's money, and the end result is pretty much the same, some third party walks away with someone's pension, and there isn't much that can be done after the fact. The kicker, as you pointed out, is that the person trying to con the gov't pension authority got conned in the process, and lost everything, most probably got zinged for their efforts. Explains a lot of Jastrebske's behavior, or at least could.

[Burnaby49]

The discussion of this case in the Dean Clifford discussion got me thinking about the pension transfer scheme I described as the possible reason Jastrebske got into tax trouble. So I did a bit of dredging around tax cases and found some taxpayers who got away with it!

http://decision.tcc-cci.gc.ca/tcc-cci/d ... 9zcwAAAAAB

However it was a back-door victory. While the pension transfer scheme wasn't allowed under the Income Tax Act the CRA assessed too late and the reassessments were statute-barred because the transactions occured outside the three year reassessing period. Happens all the time. So the issue at Tax Court wasn't whether or not the scheme was allowable but whether or not the taxpayers were negligent. Court found they weren't so taxpayers got away with the pension transfer.

[Fmotlgroupie]

Two new posts on Dr Jastrebske, a sequel and a prequel!

Firstly, our heroine appealed her conviction and sentence: http://canlii.ca/t/gfk2x . She took the surprisingly common OPCA approach of bringing the matter to the Court of Appeal and then refusing to participate in the appeal process. You can all guess how well it went (it's a shame we don't have friv pens in Canada.)

Secondly, we have a 2001 decision which I hadn't noticed before and I can only guess reflects an ongoing digitizations of old court records:
http://canlii.ca/t/5hg7 . This is from a lawsuit against her employer (a college of the University of Saskatchewan, and a response to a motion to strike out her statement of claim. It's rather interesting, especially because it quotes her statement of claim in full (I'm curious if any of the lawyers on here can judge its overall competence, beyond the fallacies underpinning it).

As you will all recall from the thread-opening judgement, Alicija took her retirement funds out of her pension fund sometime in 2000, and put them into a swindler's hands.

Here we learn that Alicija reached an early retirement agreement with the college in June of 2000 (almost $120,000 in installments), and by the time she received her first cheque in July of 2000 the college had already started paying the money directly to the tax man as garnishments.

Either Burnaby's old employer was miraculously quick on the trigger with garnishing her wages on the ill-advised pension withdrawal, or that Alicija had pre existing issues. Given that she was already using the David-Wynn:Miller punctuation already, I suspect that she had built up a history of tax-protest type shenanigans (which would also explain her bosses' unsympathetic response to her complaints about the garnishment).

Hurrah for Canlii, the only place on the Internet where the past gets clearer over time, instead of link-rotting away!

[Burnaby49]

Either Burnaby's old employer was miraculously quick on the trigger with garnishing her wages on the ill-advised pension withdrawal, or that Alicija had pre existing issues. Given that she was already using the David-Wynn:Miller punctuation already, I suspect that she had built up a history of tax-protest type shenanigans (which would also explain her bosses' unsympathetic response to her complaints about the garnishment).

Not to boast about the CRA but I'm guessing it is the former with some of the latter. The CRA was proactive on these retirement withdrawal scams and, while I had nothing to directly to do with the issue, I'm guessing that she was on the radar as soon as she took the money out.

The "unsympathetic response" probably had little to do with her prior bullshitting around but everything to do with the fact that the garnishee was entirely legal and pubic institutions have nothing to gain by arguing them on behalf of idiots no longer employed by the institutions. Why would they have given any sympathetic response on behalf of a greedy self-destructive fool when served with a legally valid order to garnishee? What do they care? Why would they go to bat for her?

Jastrebske was, from what I can tell, an intelligent legally competent individual who just decided that she didn't want to be taxed on her pension so she bought into a totally stupid scam to try to defraud the CRA. She got caught and her life is in shambles. Tough. My twilight years are financed by a pension from the government of Canada and it wouldn't cross my mind for a moment to jeopardize that by screwing around to save tax. The CRA is very focused on any schemes to try and take pension or RRSP money out tax free.

Let me give you my position on paying tax, a position based on 35 years as a CRA auditor, much of it spent dealing with tax avoidance. You have the two extremes, tax evasion and compliance.

Full compliance is the CRA wet dream. Tax evasion is criminal, see my Porisky compendium on that one;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10250

In between, the aggressive edge, is tax avoidance. This is where you find, quite legally, loopholes, anomalies, quirks, what have you in the law that let you avoid taxes that parliament really meant you to pay. That was where I spent the last decade or so of my working life, fighting tax avoidance schemes. And I'm fully in favour of them! If a scheme met the requirements of the Income Tax Act then, in my opinion, it was an entirely valid interpretation of the legislation. I have no moralistic viewpoint, just a legal one. When I went to court to oppose a tax avoidance scheme and lost I didn't let it bother me. If the Tax Court agreed with it then it was entirely appropriate within the Act. But when people like Jastrebske try to defraud the system, tough. It's that step too far. The fact that she got conned and lost all the money on top of having to pay the tax is the price she paid for her blind greedy stupidity. If she had, like I did, just left her pension alone and paid the taxes on it, she would have done fine.

[Burnaby49]

Sorry, forgot to thank you for the new case link. My Dark Masters drive me so mercilessly forward into posting new and even more spectacular revelations that I just don't have the time to do nostalgic browsing of past favorites. The Western Cabal is relentless.

[Mike_p]

Couldn't help noticing that this lady seems to have an appearence today at Southwark Crown Court.
(Was looking at the listing for Belinda MacKenzie in relation to the Hampstead Hoax)

[AnOwlCalledSage]

A little digging found this on a 419 fraud detection site. Seems too much of a co-incidence that a scammer is using her name. On the other hand, who would be stupid enough to use their own name!?!

From: "Jastrebske" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <alicijajastrebske@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 06:38:03 -0700
Subject: YOUR IMMEDIATE RESPONSE IS REQUIRED

My Dear Friend

It is understandable that you may be a bit apprehensive because you do not know me, I am writing this mail to you with serious tears in my eyes and great sorrow in my heart, I decided to contact you due to the urgency of my situation. I want to tell you this because I don't have any other option than to tell you as I was touched to open up to you.

I am a widow because i lost my husband 9years ago, we were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for couple of weeks. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of Four million,(€4,000,000)with one of the banks here in Benin, because we earlier had plans of having a charity firm.

Meanwhile, recently, My Doctor told me that I would not last, that i have couple of weeks to live due to Brain tumor/cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to hand you over this mission to take care of the less-privileged, you will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want you to take 30% of the total money for your personal and family use While 70% of the money will go to charity work" helping people in the street.

Because I grew up as an Orphan and I don't have anybody as my family member. As soon as I receive your reply I shall link you up with the bank.Please kindly contact me back with the following information.

Your full name...............
Your address ................
Your mobile number...........
Your identification Card such as drivers license or international passport or other ID.

So I can forward them to my bank and have you present to the bank as the next person in charge of this fund, so that if i die anytime, the situation will not be complicated. I count on your goodwill and especially on the proper use of these funds. Please reply me through my email address.

Email: alicijajastrebske@gmail.com

Yours Sincerely
Mrs. Alicija Jastrebske

[notorial dissent]

Definitely a 419 and I would say a stolen name. For one thing the original ISN'T that coherent.

[Burnaby49]

It looks like someone has stolen our Alicija Jastrebske's name for a 419. The name is unlikely to have been chosen by chance but our Alicija Jastrebske has to be in her mid 70's and lives in Saskatchewan. I can't see her impersonating a Nigerian widow although, after losing her pension from greed and stupidity, she's probably broke.

If you check Mowe's April 13, 2013 post ( the first in this thread) he mentioned how Alicija's name was used in a 2011 419 letter similar to this one.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

Whilst I don't doubt that she live(s)/(d) in Saskatchewan, the resurrection of this thread was because of a case heard today in Southwark Crown Court, London. Unfortunately I have no further details.

Court 12 U20190003 ALICIJA ELLEN JASTREBSKE For Mention - Case Started 11/01/2019 10:38

Can't count out a bizarre co-incidence, but that's a bizarre co-incidence!!!

[notorial dissent]

It looks like someone has stolen our Alicija Jastrebske's name for a 419. The name is unlikely to have been chosen by chance but our Alicija Jastrebske has to be in her mid 70's and lives in Saskatchewan. I can't see her impersonating a Nigerian widow although, after losing her pension from greed and stupidity, she's probably broke.

If you check Mowe's April 13, 2013 post ( the first in this thread) he mentioned how Alicija's name was used in a 2011 419 letter similar to this one.

Quite true, but I can see her being gullible enough to fall for a 419 and then getting her name and info out there for using.

[Burnaby49]

It's possible that it's the same person. Our Alicija Jastrebske could have been a British citizen who emigrated to Canada either by herself or at a young age with her parents. Got educated here and worked here. Then, when it all went to shit because of her own greed and stupidity, returned home. If the details of the Southwark Crown Court hearing come out and they relate to freeman nonsense or an attempt to avoid taxes then it's probably her. The name can't be that common.