Megan Weistra, aka Megan O'Gorman, appears in this 2018 photo.

(CONTRIBUTED / iNFOnews.ca)

Nearly a decade after a woman defrauded two Kelowna companies of more than a half-million dollars she was sentenced to seven years jail today.

Megan O'Gorman, 35, supported a lavish lifestyle over nearly two years with money she stole from two companies through hundreds of credit card payments, forged cheques and payroll transfers.

In 2016, she started work at Refresh Financial, where she stayed for just over a year. Earning $60,000 per year as a bookkeeper, the repeat fraudster pocketed nearly $400,000.

When she was caught by the company, she immediately started working at High Street Ventures, where she took around $126,000 in just a few months.

She did it "for no reason other than greed," a provincial court judge said today, Aug. 29.

O'Gorman's combined seven-year sentence includes five years for defrauding Refresh and two years for defrauding High Street, but it was reduced by around 26 months for time already served.

The court also ordered she pay a total of roughly $425,000 in restitution split between both companies.

The Kelowna fraudster worked for the two companies less than two years, and the more than $520,000 she stole was used for flights, expensive hotel stays, furniture and car rentals in that time, along with rent payments, the court heard.

O'Gorman not only repeated her schemes immediately after she was caught at Refresh but she also has a life-long history of theft and dishonesty, the court heard.

She had previous convictions of fraud in Alberta, along with fabricating evidence and attempting to obstruct justice. A restitution order handed down in 2021 ordered she repay an Edmonton property management company more than $1 million, which has not been paid.

“O'Gorman began lying in her adolescence. She has continued lying,” Crown prosecutor Jessica Saris told the court last month. “Fraud is just a way of life for Ms. O’Gorman."

The court heard O'Gorman grew up with an abusive family and started habitually lying and stealing from an early age. She has also been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

When O'Gorman told the court she was ashamed and embarrassed of her actions, the Crown was skeptical of whether that was truthful.

While the judge acknowledged her habitual lying, he also said some honesty was clear in a pre-sentence report. She had admitted that a source of her fraud and theft is that she was "addicted to the thrill of spending the money."

Once O'Gorman is released, she will be barred for life from taking any job in which she handles other people's money. Her own money will be going toward nearly $1.5 million she owes in restitution to the companies she stole from in Alberta and BC over the last 13 years.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Levi Landry or call 250-819-3723 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here.

News from © iNFOnews, 2025