A Canadian teacher who lost her life savings in a real estate scheme secretly recorded the man now accused of duping her out of $345,000.Former Dellwood teacher Dianne Laird told the Supreme Court she began to panic as Cedric Oates and his US associate Michael Hopkins kept putting off paying her back — and the date loomed for her return to Canada.“I didn’t have a job set up,” the visibly distraught witness told prosecutor Nicole Smith — adding that she now has to live with her parents in New Brunswick.Mr Oates, 41, denies issuing a statement he knew to be false, misleading or convincing, to induce Ms Laird to invest the money in 2009.Ms Laird had been planning to leave Bermuda and build a home back in Canada with her boyfriend.She came to believe Mr Oates could make her “big money” through Mr Hopkins’ sales of foreclosed homes in the US, and paid the money into Mr Oates’ Bank of America account, expecting a quick return.The jury also heard Mr Oates warned her not to discuss the deal with her boyfriend because he would “tell her not to do it”.In an emotional testimony yesterday, Ms Laird said Mr Oates tried to reassure her that “my wife knows about the deal”, as proof it was above board.She also said he told her: “You can trust me, nothing is going to happen to your money. My wife’s godfather is [former Premier] Dr Ewart Brown.”Mr Oates said his father, a lawyer, was also friends with Dr Brown, she added.Unassuaged, Ms Laird said she became “scared and worried” as time went on.In September, 2009, she was told by Mr Oates, shortly before she collected Mr Hopkins on a visit to Bermuda, that his associate hadn’t ended up buying a property called “the 48th Street project” because it cost too much.She told Ms Smith that her understanding was Mr Hopkins had already bid on a supposedly sure project, for which she would get back $180,000, followed shortly by the rest of the money, by Christmas of that year.Mr Oates’ manner remained “nonchalant” and “casual” as he informed her of the new deal, she said.“He said, ‘Don’t you trust me, Di? You stress too much’,” she continued. “‘You’re going to have your money back in three or four months.”However, she told the court: “I knew right then it was obvious the two of them were up to something. From that day on, I know that Cedric Oates and Michael Hopkins were up to something.”She said she believed at that point that “they were not going to show me how much they were making”.No paperwork or promissory note had been given to her, she said, with the two telling her it was “because I was Canadian”.At the end of 2009, when the money failed to materialise, she said, Mr Oates then told her that FHA [US Federal Housing Administration] rules on a “flip”, or quick resale, would cause extra delay.“Upset and very worried” over Christmas, Ms Laird said Mr Oates “was avoiding me, not contacting me as much as before” in early 2010.She said he maintained “that they still had buyers and that they had one house closing by the end of February and the other closing by the end of March or April”.Stories between the two men had begun to conflict, she added.Ms Smith asked her: “By that point, did you have any more money to invest?”She did not, Ms Laird replied — but had planned to return to Canada with money that had gone instead into the “flip” scheme.Contractors had been supposed to commence work on her own home in July, 2010, she said.However, the court heard, by the long May 24 weekend of 2010, Ms Laird had come to “the final blow”.She said she obtained a hand-held recorder, went to a residence of Mr Oates — a US citizen — and recorded conversation with the accused, which she took to police. Mr Oates was arrested that same month.The trial continues tomorrow.