On Campus

Kwantlen student union staffer gets death threat

Letter demands Desmond Rodenbour halt union’s lawsuit against past directors

The dispute over allegations of fraud at the Kwantlen Student Association took a nasty turn when a staff person got a death threat in the mail.

Desmond Rodenbour, KSA general manager, received the typed note at his home address on Friday. It warns that if Rodenbour doesn’t “take a stip back [sic]” that “police well find another foot from Fraser river [sic],” the note reads. The note gives a deadline of ten days, presumably for Rodenbour to stop a lawsuit launched by the student association against four former executives.

The KSA commenced a lawsuit last month against Takhar and four of his former cronies. The Writ of Summons filed with the B.C. Supreme Court alleges that Aaron Singh Takhar, three other former student politicians, and AST Ventures (notice a pattern?) made $140,000 in unsupported payments and entered into $820,000 of unapproved, high risk loans between May 2005 and October 2006.

In an email, Rodenbour wrote, “My family and I are pretty scared but, of course, people of conscience can’t possibly yield to this type of intimidation.” He noted that the stopping the lawsuit is not his decision but that of the KSA.

“This threat just clarifies how morally bankrupt and desperate the people are who were behind the original scandal, and who now – through threat and intimidation – are seeking to get themselves out of the hole they dug,” he said.

The recent lawsuit is just the latest of Takhar’s legal troubles. In May 2007, he was charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking after he and two friends traveling near Vanderhoof, B.C. in two vehicles were pulled over for a routine check. Although Takhar stopped his car, his friends’ SUV — rented in Takhar’s name, according to police, and containing 170 pot plants — fled police and plunged into the Nechako River, killing Daljit Sandhu. According to a forensic audit, Sandhu had received $8,000 in undocumented payments from the KSA. Then in February, Pritpal Singh Virk — who was the second person in the doomed SUV — died in hospital after being shot on a Vancouver street.

Maclean’s OnCampus covered the allegations of fraud here.

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