“The former chief of the Sipekne’katik First Nation in Nova Scotia is facing assault charges in two separate cases,” reports Maureen Googoo for Ku’ku’kwes News:
Michael Patrick Sack, 42, is charged with aggravated assault for allegedly wounding another man at or near Saulnierville, N.S. on October 28, 2023.
…
Sack and his son, 20-year-old Michael Patrick Sack, Jr., are also charged with allegedly assaulting three men in Halifax on April 16, 2023.
…
Sack is also facing charges of mischief, theft under $5,000 and uttering threats of violence following an incident at a residence in Fort Ellis, N.S. on March 16, 2023.
No pleas have been entered related to the Saulnierville incident, nor has a court date been set. Sack and his son both entered not guilty pleas in the Halifax charge, and Sack has entered not guilty pleas related to the Fort Ellis charges; trials are scheduled for Oct. 15 in Halifax and June 5 in Truro, respectively.
Details of the charges are not yet available.
Sack’s legal history
Several years ago, I obtained Sack’s court records. The various cases, by court file number, included:
215687 (2004) William Bennett Fitzgerald vs Michael Sack
470336 (2017) Workers Compensation vs Michael Sack dba Mainland Jugage Seafood Broker
274813 (2006) Garret Enterprises Incorporated vs Indian Brook Fisheries Limited
461037 (2017) Bank of Montreal vs Michael P. Sack
423232 (2014) Kent Building Supplies vs Sack’s Contracting & Management and Michael P. Sack
447436 (2016) Royal Bank of Canada vs Sack’s Excavating Ltd, Sack’s Contracting & Management Limited, Michael P. Sack
461033 (2017) Bank of Montreal vs Michael P. Sack
408367 (2012, criminal) Atty general vs Jeffrey Cecil Hayes and Michael Patrick Sack
439767 (2015) Labour Standards Act vs Sack’s Contracting & Management
Additionally, there were two other cases for which the files had been destroyed. I don’t know why the files were destroyed or what the cases were about:
461037 (2017) Bank of Montreal vs Michael P. Sack
461033 (2017) Bank of Montreal vs Michael P. Sack
Most of these cases are civil suits, and most of those involved minor business debts (under $50,000) and labour code violations (under $3,000).
A notable exception is the 2004 Fitzgerald case; on July 18, 2005, William Bennett Fitzgerald, doing business as H.B.L Forestry, obtained a $490,924 court judgment against Michael and Lynn Sack, doing business as Sack’s Excavating.
Corruption
One case, however, was significant in the political history of the Sipekne’katik First Nation. That’s the 2012 case against Jeffrey Cecil Hayes and Michael Patrick Sack involving corruption and diversion of band funds. Sack was a band councillor at the time, and Hayes was the band’s financial director.*
Court documents give details of the corruption, including Loblaws’ relationship to it, which has never before been reported on.
According to an affidavit from Halifax Regional Police detective James Dill, the corruption was first discovered when the band council hired an accountant named Shawn Fitzgerald to clean up the band’s books. This was to prepare for an audit and because the accounts had fallen behind.
Fitzgerald found some cheques from the band to a company called MRJJ. The band’s usual practice was to use computer-printed cheques, but the cheques to MRJJ were hand-written, and signed by Chief Jerry Sack and by Hayes. One of the cheques was for over $200,000.
On investigation, Fitzgerald found that MRJJ had been established in 2010 by Hayes to deal with the band’s development of the Wallace Hills property on Hammonds Plains Road in Halifax.
Dill, the detective, wrote that Wallace Hills was otherwise unaffiliated with the criminal investigation; it was just the reason for the establishment of MRJJ.
MRJJ had four shareholders — Michael Sack, Ronnie Augustine (another band councillor), Jerry Sack, and Jeffrey Hayes. The company’s name was created from the first initials of the first names of each of the men, MRJJ.
Additionally, there seems to have been co-mingling of personal and band funds with another of Hayes’ companies, called Amcrest. Hayes used Amcrest to pay off band debts and then invoiced the band for reimbursement, an arrangement that doesn’t make a lot of sense (why not just charge the band directly?). Hayes’ daughter was employed by the company, allegedly to do clerical work.
Amcrest was established by Hayes using an address on Oak Street in Halifax, which Hayes rented.
Fitzgerald, the accountant, uncovered a skimming scheme involving the band’s sale of cigarettes.
Sipekne’katik had a long-standing deal with Loblaws, in which Loblaws would provide cigarettes to the band at a reduced price. But then, a change in the arrangement was made at Hayes’ request. Dill, the detective, wrote that he interviewed a Loblaws employee named Ralph Davison, who worked with First Nations:
He [Davison] had several meetings with Jerry Sack and Jeffrey Hayes regarding cigarette sales. They informed Davison the Band was not making a profit from cigarette sales but they did not want to raise their prices because they were competing against cheaper illegal cigarettes and other First Nations were also selling cigarettes.
He [Davison] agreed to sell cigarettes at an inflated price and provide them with a monthly rebate, less an administration fee. He was under the impression the Band would use the rebate for future development projects.
For this observer anyway, none of this makes sense. How do you better compete by paying more for your product? Davison should have suspected something was amiss.
Regardless, Hayes had the rebate cheques deposited in a moribund band bank account called “Sports,” which he did not record in the band’s budgeting documents. From that account, the money was then transferred to either MRJJ or Amcrest.
Halifax police obtained production orders for the various bank accounts, and Dill summarized what was learned, as follows:
Some of the money going to MRJJ was transferred back to Band accounts and some money was used to pay for some unapproved Band projects (i.e. School playground equipment). Other money was used for the personal benefit of Jeffrey Hayes including payments to himself ($22,000), payments to Amcrest, and two payments in the amounts of $45,000 and $69,171.43 paid to Burchell MacDougall for the property which Jeffrey Hayes purchased (22 Kittiwakee Ridge, Halibut Bay, NS.)
Of the $277,784.85 that went to Amcrest, 99.21% has been traced to money belonging to the Band. Some smaller amounts paid out could be payments of Band expenses. The majority of the money appears to have been used for the personal benefit of Jeffrey Hayes…
Dill noted that $29,150 went to pay Hayes directly; $19,567 went either to Hayes’ son Chris Hayes or to pay for Chris’s tuition at Holland College; $31,818 went to Hayes’ daughter Amy Hayes “who supposedly did bank reconciliations for the Band,” and another $1,500 for Amy’s tuition at NSCC; two separate payments of $69,171.43 and $45,000 for land in Halibut Bay, and over $100,000 for various contractors for constructing the house on the property.
Hayes also used Amcrest to buy a 2009 Jeep Liberty for $22,584, and a 2009 Jeep Patriot for $22,000. Dill drove by the Oak Street property and saw both vehicles were in the driveway; he noted that the Liberty was used by Hayes, while the Patriot was driven by Hayes’ commonlaw wife, Cindy McKeown.
There were additionally a number of Hayes’ personal expenses paid for by Amcrest, including for a lawyer to handle his divorce ($980), a TV ($609), his cell phone bills ($3,371), and Christmas gifts for his family ($726).
Police hired forensic accountants Lori Shea and Hugh Avery to track the funds, and they produced this chart:
Enter Michael Sack
Amcrest paid Michael Sack just $643, which Hayes said was for work Sack did on the Halibut Bay property.
Dill interviewed Hayes on July 29, 2010 and again on April 20, 2012. A day after the second interview, Hayes had sold the Halibut Bay property to Mike Sack — for $1. Dill wrote:
Michael Sack is a suspect in the investigation and we believe he committed a breach of trust in relation to [a] somewhat separate issue involving land in Wallace Hills. We believe he used his position as a Band Councillor to identify a piece of land of value to the Band. He then used his position to personally purchase the land for approximately $40,000 which he then sold for $65,000 to the Band. We are in the process of confirming the exact amounts of the purchase and sale. Furthermore, Michael Sack is the “M” in MRJJ, he was one of MRJJ’s directors, and Jeffrey Hayes advised that Michael Sack was aware of various payments going through MRJJ / Amcrest.
Dill obtained a restraining order from the court, which prohibited Sack from selling the Halibut Bay property and ordered him to maintain insurance payments on it.
Hayes was convicted of stealing $342,000 from the band, and was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $139,000.
Sack was not charged with any criminal wrongdoing related to Wallace Hills. He was, however, charged in relation to the corruption scheme. Prosecutors argued that Sack must have known about Hayes’ illicit proceeds, especially since Sack took possession of the Halibut Bay property, apparently in an (ultimately fruitless) bid to shield it from being seized by the courts.
On that charge, Sack entered adult diversion, and was ordered to repay $132,000 to the band, in return for not having a criminal conviction.
Remarkably, Sack was elected Band Chief in 2016, defeating incumbent Rufus Copage, who had provided police information against Sack related to the cigarette scheme investigation.
Sack was chief until 2022, when Michelle Glasgow defeated him in an election for Band Chief.
* As originally published, this article incorrectly referred to Jeffrey Hayes as a band councillor; he was not.
Thank you for reporting on the documented evidence. No one else is doing this work. I especially love the flowchart. Sack has graduated to the next level of criminality with these assault charges. I can see likely getting away with one instance but to be accused of having committed another assault within six months seems a bit much.
He’s not the only politician out there whose legal troubles have failed to cost him supporters