James Timothy Drummond pleads guilty to fraud over $5K

A man who was once described by a B.C. Supreme Court judge as a "con man and a compulsive liar" has pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 in Newfoundland.

• B.C. 'con man' facing fraud charges in N.L.

James Timothy Drummond, 68, was supposed to begin a two-day trial at Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John's on Wednesday.

Drummond was facing two counts of fraud over $5,000 for allegedly defrauding a local property management company, Burke Realty, in 2013.

He had pleaded not guilty to both counts last fall.

But on Wednesday morning, he pleaded guilty to the first charge.

The second count was conditionally withdrawn by the Crown.

Crown prosecutor Dana Sullivan and defence lawyer Tammy Drover will now work on an agreed statement of facts, which will be brought before the court on Thursday.

It is expected that a date will also be set at that time for sentencing.

Other charges pending

Drummond is also facing more charges in a separate legal matter.

Last April, he was charged with six counts — fraud over $5,000, obtaining the use of land or property through false pretence, and two charges each of forgery and using a forged document — allegedly tied to the purchase of a house in Conception Bay South in the fall of 2014.

• B.C. 'con man' trial delayed due to medical reasons as new charges filed

The fraud charge was dropped in December, due to "insufficient information."

• James Timothy Drummond fraud charge withdrawn; forgery-related counts pending

The other charges still stand. The matter is back in provincial court in St. John's on Feb. 22.

Checkered past in B.C.

Drummond has a checkered history in British Columbia.

In the 1990s, he was convicted of stealing more than $44,000 from the West Vancouver Boy Scouts' Christmas tree fund — a group that he had volunteered with for several years.

In a 2008 court decision, a B.C. Supreme Court judge called him a "con man and a compulsive liar," "amoral" and "deceitful."

In that decision, the judge noted how Drummond had told a "staggeringly long list of complicated lies," including tales of dead relatives who were alive, leukemia that he didn't actually have — even a fake family castle in Scotland and a trust fund in the U.K. that turned out not to exist.

The judge wrote that Drummond had justified the lies as ways "to buy some time" or to achieve "flexibility."