The former CEO of Baffin Fisheries says he’s confident he’ll be fully exonerated of the criminal charges he’s facing.

Garth Reid, 51, was charged in January with fraud and breach of trust after the company won a civil lawsuit against him in 2019.

Discrepancies first came to light in the fall of 2017, followed by Reid’s firing and the lawsuit.

A Supreme Court judge ruled that he did, in fact, use more than half a million dollars of company money to help build himself a mansion and guest house on family land in Winterton, Trinity Bay.

Reid was ordered to pay back almost $550,000—which had been earmarked for a new company office at Pond Inlet, in Nunavut.

Reid was physically in Supreme Court yesterday for what’s known as a judgment debtor hearing, where Baffin Fisheries counsel questioned him about all available assets in order to satisfy the debt.

It revealed that, for all intents and purposes, Reid is broke, although he insists there are others responsible for that, telling VOCM News that all will be revealed at his criminal trial. He also still owes thousands to both Revenue Canada and a Quebec construction company.

Reid now lives in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s with his wife, who was initially named in the lawsuit but later excused by the company. Reid says she’s in the midst of her own battle with cancer.

Reid is due to enter a plea in mid-November but tells VOCM it’ll be not guilty.