Trust Betrayed...

A separatist leader was found to have misappropriated over $1.2 million from family members suffering from dementia

Separatist Leader Dennis Modry, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Separatist Leader Mitch Sylvestre at the May 8, 2025 UCP Leaders Dinner Fundraiser in Bonneyville

On March 12, 2025, Justice Hoffman in the BC Supreme Court issued a shocking ruling against one of the key leaders of the separatist movement in Alberta, Dr. Dennis Modry.

The ruling was the result of a legal scandal that had taken years to unfold and ended with a scathing judgement against the former physician.

According to the ruling, obtained at CanLii, Dennis Modry, the founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project and separatist leader who has engaged in negations with the US State Department misappropriated almost a million and a half dollars from family members suffering from dementia.

Those family members were Fred and Laurette Bodnar.

Fred Bodnar died on October 2, 2018. Laurette died just over a year later, on December 25, 2019.

Before their passing thought, they unfortunately both experienced significant cognitive decline that caused significant problems.

Fred’s deterioration was documented as early as July of 2014 when Laurette was hospitalized with a broken hip and Fred was found to be experiencing a worsening of his dementia diagnosis. Fred was also admitted to hospital at the same time because Laurette was his primary caregiver whom he relied on.

Fred was found at that time to be lacking capacity “in terms of person and finances”.

Shortly before Fred and Laurette’s discharge, on October 7, 2014, Dennis Modry was named as power of attorney for his uncle Fred Bodnar and his wife Lauretta.

The judge made special note of the fact that the diagnosis of a lack of capacity was made prior to that discharge.

The Judge detailed in their ruling that Fred in particular, experienced rapid decline after leaving the hospital.

Fred assaulted a caregiver with a kitchen knife and was ultimately placed in long term care where Lauretta visited him every day until her Alzheimers became so severe she could no longer recognize her husband.

Despite the fact that Fred was only months prior found to be unable to orient himself to the correct date and time, and despite what the judge would later determine to be a conflict of interest, Dennis Modry found that…

“capacity can come and go with such a condition. The respondent maintained that Fred was sufficiently lucid with respect to financial matters and capable of giving him instructions as to investments”

With that context, in April of 2015, three months after Fred’s cognitive impairment was so severe that he attacked the caregiver with a knife, Dennis Modry entertained Fred in Edmonton and regained him with stories of his newest real estate development.

That real estate development was doomed to failure.

As the court documents that detail the visit in Edmonton show…

Foreclosure proceedings were commenced in June of 2017. The respondent deposed in his affidavit that, “I lost my home, my project, my equity and my financial retirement nest egg, along with the funds that I had invested in the project on Fred and Laurette’s behalf.”

The lawsuit claimed that Modry had siphoned off over $1.6 without “without providing proper explanation or accounting.”

Some of the “expenses” reviewed did apparently did not stand up to even Modry’s scrutiny.

In the ruling produced by the Judge, he found that Modry was willing to acknowledge that a six month lease of a condominium in Scottsdale Arizona and 24 bottles of wine were paid for with funds from Fred and Laurette but that neither the condo nor the wine was used in their care.

After all appropriate deductions for expenses that were related to Fred and Laurette’s care, the judge determined that $1,285,183.07 of Fred and Laurette’s money was unaccounted for.

Plus $9,074 spent on cryptocurrency.

The courts ruling was very clear.

Not only did Modry fail to account for well over a million dollars in expenditures, the judged inferred through the totality of the evidence that Modry presented that Modry…

“misappropriated these funds from Fred and Laurette for his own personal use.”

Further, the judge found that there was overwhelming evidence that due to his cognitive decline, Fred did not have the capacity to consent to Modry using his money to try and save his failing real estate development or…

Otherwise used for the respondents (Modry’s) personal benefit.

All told, the judge determined that not only did Modry fail to live up to the responsibilities that he committed to when he agreed to take on the financial management of Fred and Laurette’s assets, the judge also stated in their ruling that…

“I further declare that Dennis Leonard Modry misappropriated the sum of $1,283,441.31 from Mary Laurette Bodnar and Fred Bodnar for his own personal use and was unjustly enriched by that amount.”

The judge ordered repayment of $1,283,441.31 to the estate.

Of note, during most of the developments that occurred, Modry appears to have remained on the general register of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta.

Some may find it remarkable that his assessment of his Uncle’s cognitive state was so divergent from multiple medical assessments while Modry remained on that physicians registry.

His registration expired in 2017

Of additional note, Modry is one of three separatist leaders who reportedly have met with US State Department officials in secret meetings to discuss how the US could support Alberta separatism via a line of credit for $500 million that would be guaranteed with Alberta’s natural resources.

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