Bradley Whalen. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Court documents confirm Lethbridge City Council candidate has criminal past

Sep 20, 2021 | 2:19 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – It has been confirmed that one of the candidates running for city council in October’s municipal election has been convicted of eight crimes in the past.

Bradley Lawrence Whalen first announced his candidacy for the mayor’s seat in Lethbridge earlier this year and later decided to run for council instead.

In the months that followed, LNN heard from multiple community members that they believed Whalen used to go by a different name, Bradley Patrick Allen Sampson, when he used to live in Nova Scotia and had a criminal record.

Then in August, a former employee of Whalen’s at Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina in Lethbridge took to social media to make accusations that she had received a “gross amount of sexual texts and comments from him.” Others responded to the post with similar allegations.

LNN confirmed with LPS that no charges had been laid against Whalen in regards to the social media accusations and the police service was unable to say whether he was involved in any active investigations.

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Although Whalen had initially threatened any media outlets who reported on these matters with legal action and denied all accusations, he has since updated his official campaign website with a lengthy explanation of his past criminal convictions and the more recent allegations.

When requested, the Nova Scotia Judiciary supplied LNN with documents detailing the eight convictions against Bradley Patrick Sampson. Whalen said on his website that his name was legally changed to Sampson as a child during the adoption process.

In August 2004, Whalen was employed at the Fairlanes Bowling Centre in Halifax. After he was fired from his job, he stole money from the business. He was found guilty of robbery, break and enter to commit an indictable offence, disguise with intent, and unlawful confinement.

In June 2005, Whalen was charged and later convicted of two counts of fraud under $5,000 for using a credit card he found to make purchases at different stores.

The following month, in August 2005, he was charged with mischief and theft under $5,000 in relation to a residential property he was renting and residing in at the time.

The final charge of child luring was laid in March 2006. According to Whalen’s explanation on his website, he was using an online chat forum and was approached by a member of Nova Scotia RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit who was “pretending to be a child.”

He was sentenced to three years and seven months for the charges of child luring, mischief and property damage, fraud, robbery, and masked with intent. Whalen was separately sentenced to 25 days for theft.

Whalen then went on to detail his difficult upbringing.

As of the time of publication, Whalen is still listed on the City of Lethbridge’s website for city council candidates.

For more coverage of the local election, visit the Municipal Election 2021 page on LethbridgeNewsNow.com.