Burn, who is working in St. John's, was a student at the Memorial University, Grenfell Campus, and between fall 2011 and autumn she stole credit cards from her roommates, former co-workers, and from a student who she was assigned to as an advisor.

She then used the cards to buy merchandise from Forever 21 and to make payments to Virgin Mobile, to a total of approximately $9,000. She was also charged with 24 counts in relation to crimes of dishonesty, including 1 count of shoplifting for stealing clothes from the Wal-Mart branch in Corner Brook.

Burn pleaded guilty to all 24 counts, and the Crown attorney recommended to the sitting judge that Burn be sentenced to serve 9 to 12 months under house arrest. In addition, due to Canadian Immigration law, a foreign national – who Burn is recognized as – could face deportation if he or she was charged with a crime which carries a penalty of 10 years, and was actually sentenced to 6 months or more with 2 offences not connected to the same incident.

Due to this law, Burn was facing deportation, but her defence attorney asked the court to consider giving her a conditional discharge (meaning no convictions on criminal record). He asked for leniency since Burn didn't make any attempts to conceal what she had done. After carefully considering all the factors in the case, the sitting judge granted an absolute discharge on the shoplifting charge, and a conditional discharge on the other 23 offences.