A former project manager at the Jewish General Hospital has been sentenced to house arrest for his role in a scam where companies hired to do maintenance billed the institution for work that was actually done on the homes of at least three of the hospital’s administrators. 

Jeffrey Fields, 57, a resident of the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough, pleaded guilty in March to violating two counts of the federal Excise Act and to related violations of the provincial Tax Administration Act. 

After having been presented with a common suggestion on Wednesday, by defence lawyer Daniel Lighter and a lawyer representing the prosecution, Quebec Court Judge Claude Leblond agreed to give Fields a 12-month conditional sentence that will involve house arrest. Fields was also ordered to pay a total of $16,000 in fines. 

While explaining how the lawyers reached the common suggestion, Lighter told Leblond Fields has multiple sclerosis and is undergoing therapy for it. 

“Since I have known him, he has lost a lot of weight and his speech has become slurred,” Lighter said. 

Blond also agreed with a request from Lighter that his client be given two years to pay the fines because he is unable to work.

Between 2008 and 2013, Fields allowed companies that were hired to do small scale maintenance to bill the hospital for work that was actually done on private residences. Subcontractors were also able to bill the hospital for hours of work that were not done, including during periods when the subcontractors were out of the country on vacation. 

According to a decision made by Leblond in October, when he sentenced Gilbert Leizerovici, 54, (the owner of one of the companies hired to do maintenance at the hospital) to an 18-month prison term, the false billing scheme was done “in concert” with Fields and Kotiel Berdugo, 59, the former director of technical services at the Jewish General Hospital who resigned in 2013. 

According to Leblond’s decision: “The work executed outside the walls of the Jewish General Hospital and billed to the hospital was, in fact, done at the residence of Kotiel Berdugo (director of technical services at the Jewish General Hospital) as well as at the residence of his parents, the residence of Henri Elbaz (director general of the Jewish General Hospital), the residence of Philippe Castiel (director of planning and real estate development at the Jewish General Hospital).” Elbaz retired from the hospital in 2008 and Castiel resigned in 2014. 

In 2016, Berdugo, 59, of Town of Mount Royal, was charged with having violated Canada’s Excise Act. On April 20, he pleaded guilty to two of the three charges he faced and, on Oct. 4, was sentenced to pay fines totalling $133,000. 

Work was also done at Leizerovici’s home as well as the home of one of Fields’s friends. Subcontractors who did work on the residences were instructed by Leizerovici to lie on the bills about where the work was done, and Fields had the authorization allowing for the bills to be paid. 

For a period of 15 years before the investigation dubbed Project Mercato began, the Jewish General Hospital used three companies, including the one owned by Leizerovici, to do small-scale maintenance. Fields was in charge of monitoring that maintenance. Berdugo was Fields’s boss. 

The other two companies are owned by Anton Iancu, 31, and Mona Dagenais, 56, both of Montreal. They were charged in Project Mercato, along with Fields, in 2015. The charges filed against Iancu and Dagenais were stayed in April, but along with Leizerovici, they remain accused in a different case filed against them by Revenue Quebec in 2016. 

That case returns to court in 2018. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Construction companies 'faked' invoices for Jewish General Hospital contracts: affidavit
• Former Jewish General Hospital executives allegedly part of criminal conspiracy: affidavits

The sky was never a limit while he was building his empire, construction entrepreneur Antonio Accurso said to a jury in a boastful moment during his criminal trial on Thursday. 

Humility is apparently not part of Accurso’s strategy as he tries to convince the jury hearing his case that he was too focused on turning a small number of companies he owned in Quebec into a group that worked on multimillion-dollar contracts internationally to be interested or involved in a system of collusion run by former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt. 

Before Accurso took the witness stand for the first time, the jury was presented with evidence by an accountant who worked for one of Accurso’s companies, saying the contracts awarded Accurso’s firms often represented less than four per cent of their collective revenues. For example, in 2007, Laval contracts were worth 0.64 per cent of their revenues. 

As was stated earlier this week by Accurso’s lawyer, Marc Labelle, the accused is arguing he did not know two of his companies were involved in the scheme because he let them operate autonomously while, between 2003 and 2010, he was acquiring small companies and securing financing for projects in Canada, Algeria and Libya. 

“We were all over the planet,” Accurso said at one point early in his testimony.

According to the evidence presented by his accountant, Steve Caissy, Accurso increased his companies’ revenues from $265 million in 2003 to more than $1 billion in 2009. Also in 2009, the companies were awarded more than $32 million in contracts from the city of Laval. 

In order to obtain contracts worth $60 million in foreign countries, Accurso said, he constantly had to secure surety bonds to go with loans. One company he dealt with often was Aviva, an insurance company in Toronto. Accurso testified he was asking for surety bonds so often that an Aviva executive joked he would have to hire staff just to handle his requests. 

“He said I was like an arrow going straight up and he wondered where I was heading,” Accurso said. 

“Where were you heading,” Labelle asked. 

“For me the sky was never the limit,” Accurso said with a smile. 

His testimony began with a series of introductory questions from Labelle before the attorney asked Accurso point blank: “Did you take part in a system of kickbacks in Laval?” 

“No,” Accurso replied without pause. 

The Crown is alleging Accurso was part of a widespread conspiracy in which, between 1996 and 2010, Vaillancourt would choose which companies would be awarded contracts before they were even put to tender. The companies involved in the scheme were left on their own to figure out how to place fake bids for the work. The company chosen by Vaillancourt would pay the mayor and other city officials two per cent of the value of the contracts. According to evidence presented at trial, Claude Asselin, the city’s director general for many years while the scheme ran, had work done on his home. 

When asked when he first heard reference to the system, Accurso said it came from Asselin. Accurso said he became friends with Asselin in 1981, when they used to eat lunch together on Fridays at an Optimist Club in Laval. 

In 1997, Accurso said, Asselin brought up the subject. 

“He said, ‘Tony did you hear about the system of kickbacks in Laval.’ I said no,” Accurso said. “It wasn’t a big drama. It came up while we were talking about other things.” 

Accurso said after the conversation he asked himself: “Is there something going on at my companies that I don’t know?”

He said he asked the presidents of his two biggest companies — Louisbourg Construction and Simard Beaudry Inc. — if they knew anything and they said no. 

He said he was concerned because, by 1997, he had built his business to a point where he had influence among politicians and among some of Quebec’s largest unions.

“To get involved in that — the risk was enormous,” he said.

Accurso also launched into a narrative about how he got involved in construction. He said his father, the founder of Louisbourg Construction, arrived in Canada in 1922, having left “extreme poverty” in Italy’s Calabria region.

Accurso said he grew up in Ahuntsic, but attended high school at the New York Military Academy. Labelle noted it is the same school that U.S. President Donald Trump attended. 

Accurso chuckled at the mention of it. 

“He’s a bit older than me. He graduated before me,” Accurso said. “Yes, it is the same school, but that doesn’t mean we think the same way.”

‎Accurso said his father started Louisbourg and named the company after a street (in Montreal) where he worked on his first contract. Accurso took over for his father when he died in 1981. 

He told the jury he quickly learned how important it was to secure financing for construction contracts from construction union leader Louis Laberge, the founder of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ. Accurso said he was one of the fund’s founding members. He also said that after he grasped how financing worked, he focused on that and let the presidents of his companies operate with complete autonomy. 

Accurso’s testimony will resume on Friday. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

The jury hearing evidence in the case against Antonio Accurso will begin deliberating toward a verdict next week. The construction entrepreneur is charged with taking part in a system of collusion and kickbacks through which the city of Laval awarded contracts for years. 

The 66-year-old Accurso finished testifying in his own defence on Monday after having been cross-examined by prosecutor Richard Rougeau. The accused repeated that while he did have lunch meetings in restaurants with former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, the person who controlled the system of collusion that involved several construction companies and engineering firms, they did not discuss contracts his companies were interested in. 

“It was cordial,” Accurso said of his relationship with the mayor up until Vaillancourt resigned in 2012. But he also said the lunch meetings were dominated by Vaillancourt talking about his problems instead of listening to Accurso’s.

For example, Accurso said, he wanted to talk to the mayor about a zoning issue he had at a quarry he owned in Laval, but Vaillancourt would talk during “90 per cent” of their meetings. 

“It was mostly a monologue,” said Accurso who faces five charges including conspiracy, fraud and breach of trust. The system ran between 1996 and 2010.

Accurso’s defence is that he was too busy acquiring companies and arranging for financing for multimillion dollar contracts in foreign countries to be involved in the day-to-day affairs of Louisbourg Construction and Simard Beaudry Inc., two companies he owned that obtained contracts through the system of collusion. 

He said he learned Louisbourg Construction took part in the system only after he and the head of the company (Accurso’s cousin Giuseppe Molluso) were arrested in 2013. He said that after being released from a jail, he headed straight to the Laval headquarters where all his companies were based, and Molluso told him that indeed Louisbourg Construction took part in the system of collusion where companies kicked back 2 per cent of the contracts they were awarded to Vaillancourt and other city officials. 

“Did you sue Mr. Molluso,” Rougeau asked. 

“He’s (like a) brother,” Accurso said. “I don’t have a brother, so he is my brother. You don’t sue your brother.” 

Accurso also rejected the testimony of two Crown witnesses, men who testified he had full knowledge of the system of collusion and knew his companies were involved. The first was Gilles Théberge, an executive with two companies that were involved, including Valmont Nadon Excavation. He testified that in 2005, Accurso was included in discussions when Laval mistakenly awarded the same $4 million contract to Louisbourg Construction and Valmont Nadon Excavation. Théberge said he met with Molluso and Accurso at their offices to discuss the matter. 

On Monday, Accurso said he recalled seeing Théberge inside his headquarters because he asked Molluso what someone from a competing company was doing there. Accurso testified that Théberge’s presence was a distraction because, at the time, he was preparing to purchase Bannister Pipelines Inc. 

 “(Molluso) told me, ‘don’t worry about it. (Théberge) wants a discount. There is nothing to it,'” Accurso said while denying he sat down to talk with Théberge because “I was about to make the biggest acquisition of my life.

“I wasn’t about to sit down and discuss something I didn’t have time for.” 

Accurso also denied the testimony of Marc Gendron, an engineer who was assigned by Vaillancourt to collect kickback money from companies. In October, Gendron testified that, sometime around 2000, Accurso handed him $200,000 in cash in two envelopes. Gendron said the money was delivered to a notary who collected money for Vaillancourt’s political party. 

Justice James Brunton, the presiding judge in the trial, informed the jury that closing arguments will begin on Thursday and that they should expect to begin deliberating on Nov. 21.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• The fix was in at Laval city hall for years, jury told at Accurso trial
• Laval corruption trial: Too focused to be involved in collusion, Accurso tells court

A priest who taught at Collège Notre-Dame decades ago and admitted on Tuesday to having sexually abused a teenage boy at the school has been sentenced to 15 months of house arrest.

Using a walker and unable to meet the usual Montreal courthouse requirement to stand, Olivain Leblanc, 75, sat while he pleaded guilty to one count of gross indecency.

Prosecutor Amélie Rivard explained that, between 1979 and 1981, the abuse involved oral sex and touching the student in a sexual manner when the victim was a young teenager. She also said the joint recommendation made on the sentence, along with defence lawyer Isabel Schurman, was agreed upon during a long facilitation process where negotiations where held before a different Quebec Court judge outside of a courtroom. 

“Nothing can repair (the victim),” Rivard said while summarizing the difficulty the man went through after he was abused. In a story published in the Montreal Gazette in 2010, the victim said he lived a solitary life, wrestling with the psychological after-effects of what he experienced. He said he bounced from dead-end job to dead-end job while his former classmates went on to become engineers, lawyers and doctors. 

On Tuesday, the victim, whose name is protected by a publication ban, made a brief statement before the Quebec Court judge agreed with the joint recommendation on the sentence that was presented to her.

“When I was expelled from Collège Notre-Dame, I went to see (Leblanc) and he said, ‘There is nothing I can do for you.’ Now it is my turn to say to him that there is nothing I can do for you,” the victim said.

As he approached the bench the victim looked directly toward Leblanc and was startled when the abuser said something to him as he walked by. 

“What he said was, ‘It’s OK.’ It was his way of saying to me, ‘Go ahead and say what you have to say’,” the victim explained later outside the courtroom. 

Leblanc also made a statement to the court and apologized directly to the victim and his mother, who is now deceased.

Leblanc will have to spend the first seven months of the sentence at his residence all day except for specific circumstances. He will have to respect a curfew for the last eight months of the sentence. He will also be on Canada’s sex offender registry for 20 years. Schurman said her client has difficulty walking, suffers from diabetes, depression and has a problem with his prostate. 

“I am satisfied (with the sentence) in the sense that Brother Leblanc has serious health problems. I don’t want to criticize the work done by the prosecutor either because a lot of work was done (on the file). We’re talking about five years now (Leblanc was charged in 2012). That’s very long,” the victim said adding he believes Leblanc was sincere in his apology “up to a certain point.” 

The victim was accompanied in court by Sue Montgomery, a former Montreal Gazette reporter who, in 2009, won the Judith Jasmin award, Quebec’s most prestigious journalism award, for her exposé of child molestation by clergy at Montreal’s Collège Notre Dame and other Catholic institutions in the 1970s. Last week, Montgomery was elected as borough mayor of the Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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A jury has finally begun hearing evidence in a trial involving the murder of Juthlande Pierre, a 42-year-old woman who was killed more than two decades ago in the West Island. 

Dieuseul Jean, 56, is alleged to have killed Pierre, his girlfriend, on Dec. 25, 1995, and is charged with second-degree murder. As prosecutor Jacques Dagenais explained in his opening statement to the jury at the Montreal courthouse on Tuesday, it took 22 years to bring the accused to trial because he was living in hiding, under a different identity, for years in the U.S. 

Dagenais said Jean’s true identity was discovered in 2013, after he applied for a driver’s licence in the U.S. and was required to supply fingerprints. Jean had been the subject of an Interpol warrant for two decades because the Montreal police knew he had travelled to New Jersey soon after Pierre was killed in Roxboro. 

Dagenais said an autopsy done on Pierre’s body, discovered several days after she was killed, revealed she had been stabbed, but the cause of death was determined to be by strangulation

pcherry@postmedia.com

The jury hearing the trial of Sabrine Djermane and El Mahdi Jamali returned to the Montreal courthouse for the first time in a week on Tuesday, only to find out the case is now faced with a considerable delay. 

“I’m sure it is a shock for you,” Superior Court Justice Marc David told the jury after informing the panel he has to deal with two motions, outside of the presence of the jury, before determining how and when the trial will resume. “It is inconceivable that your work will be done before Dec. 22.” 

David told the jury that if they are not finished by Dec. 22, they will be given two weeks off during the holidays. In the worst-case scenario, David said, the trial will continue until the end of January. 

“There are things that I can control and there are things I cannot control,” David said to the jury before apologizing. 

The jury began hearing evidence on Sept. 13 and David originally estimated the trial would come to an end on Nov. 10. On Nov. 7, the Crown announced it had finished presenting all of its evidence and David told the jury that defence lawyers Charles Benmouyal and Tiago Murias were expected to announce if they would mount a defence on Nov. 10.

David deciding to delay that announcement after being presented with the two motions. The Montreal Gazette is unable to publish what the motions involve because the jury has not been made aware of their contents. The young couple are alleged to have begun taking steps to prepare a pressure-cooker bomb based on instructions found in a terrorist propaganda magazine and to have made plans to leave Canada on May 1, 2015 to join ISIL in Syria.  

Before the trial began, Djermane, 21, and Jamali, 20, pleaded not guilty to the four charges they face. They are accused of: attempting to leave Canada with the goal of committing a crime in another country; being in possession of an explosive substance; facilitating a terrorist activity; and committing a criminal act for the benefit or under the direction of a terrorist group by having an explosive substance under their control.

pcherry@postmedia.com

The longtime Montreal defence lawyer who served as a bridge between criminal organizations while they sought to control drug trafficking in the city is scheduled to go before the Parole Board of Canada on Tuesday with a request to be released on his 34-month prison term. 

It was only nine months ago, on Feb. 1, that Loris Cavaliere, 63, a lawyer who specialized in organized crime cases, pleaded guilty to a gangsterism charge and a charge related to a firearm that police found in the basement of a building that housed his law offices in Little Italy. He received his current sentence as part of a joint recommendation made by the Crown and defence lawyer Martin Subak. Cavaliere was sentenced to a 26-month prison term for the gangsterism charge and eight months consecutive to that for possession of the 9mm pistol. Quebec Court Judge Pierre Labelle required that Cavaliere serve at least 13 months of the gangsterism charge before he becomes eligible for full parole. This means the attorney will likely be seeking day parole during Tuesday’s hearing.  

In 2015, Cavaliere was arrested along with several other people as part of an investigation into drug trafficking in the city. The investigation revealed that as early as 2012, Cavaliere was a key figure in an alliance forged between members of the Montreal Mafia, the Hells Angels and influential street gang leaders. 

According to a summary of the case read into the court record when Cavaliere entered his guilty pleas: “On many occasions, Loris Cavaliere took part in conversations between several important organized crime figures who were known to police. He actively participated to see to the interests of organized crime. He served as a bridge between criminal organizations by delivering messages between incarcerated individuals or between organized crime factions.” 

As the investigation progressed, the Sûreté du Québec realized Cavaliere was using his offices as a meeting place for gangsters who were part of the alliance. As early as January 2013, investigators noticed that a clothing store, in the same building and owned by Cavaliere’s wife, was being used as a meeting place for criminals. Surveillance cameras were installed inside and outside the store and the police eventually realized Cavaliere’s meeting room was used as well.

The organized crime figures likely assumed the police would never be able to record their conversations in a lawyer’s office because Canadian law protects attorney-client conversations as something the police should not have access to. But, according to the summary, the meeting room at Cavaliere’s firm on St-Laurent Blvd., near the corner of Mozart Ave., was used by criminals to discuss “money laundering, payment of rent for (the permission) to sell drugs, collection of money and the possibility of using violence to solve different problems.”

Due to a publication ban, the Montreal Gazette is unable to report the names of the people who allegedly took part in those meetings. 

The pistol Cavaliere admitted to possessing, a Walther P99 Quick Action 9mm, was found stashed in the ceiling of the basement of the building. Someone had filed the serial number off of the pistol but investigators were able to link it to a firearms investigation involving a company in British Columbia and, according to the summary, “several firearms related to that case were found during diverse criminal investigations.”

This story will be updated. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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Two men with extensive criminal records who pulled off a brazen armoured car heist in broad daylight in Pointe-Claire last year will be free men on Thursday after the Crown did an about face in their trial and offered to let them plead guilty and be sentenced to time served. 

Stessy Beaulieu

Joseph Evrard and Stessy Beaulieu were scheduled to have a trial before a jury soon at the Montreal courthouse and Superior Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard was hearing pretrial motions filed by defence lawyer Alan Guttman this week. Both men faced charges related to the Oct. 21, 2016, armed robbery of armoured vehicle that was rammed by a Caterpillar 950S front end loader. The loader was also used to force open the back doors of the Garda World truck. The heist was carried out while the vehicle was located behind the Home Depot on Hymus Blvd. in the West Island. 

When the doors of the vehicle were opened, two masked men jumped in, grabbed bags containing more than $55,000 and fled. 

In one motion Guttman was seeking to have some of the evidence gathered by police excluded from the jury trial while arguing warrants obtained in the investigation violated the men’s Charter rights protecting all Canadians against an unreasonable search or seizure. In one part of his 63-page motion, Guttman argued the police obtained information on Beaulieu from a car rental company without proper judicial authorization. 

In another motion Guttman asked the Crown to turn over information concerning a witness in an effort to determine if the person was actually a police informant. Blanchard did not rule on either motion as the guilty pleas were entered before he could rule on them. 

On Wednesday, while the motions were being heard, the Crown suddenly offered to let both Evrard and Beaulieu plead guilty and be sentenced to the time they have already served since their arrests plus one more day in jail. With the sentences Evrard and Beaulieu will be free men as of Thursday. The motions were filed by defence lawyers Alan Guttman and Maxime Chevalier.

Evrard, who was found to be in possession of more than $17,600 when he was arrested last year, has been convicted of similar crimes in the past. In 2002, he was sentenced to the equivalent of a 54-month prison term for his role in an attempt to break into an armoured car in Dorval in 2001. In that case, he and three other men used a thermal torch to try to cut through the truck but ended up setting the vehicle on fire.  

pcherry@postmedia.com

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Antonio Accurso’s lawyer called the credibility of several Crown witnesses into question while making his closing arguments in the jury trial where the construction entrepreneur is alleged to have taken part in a system of collusion involving contracts awarded by the city of Laval. 

“(Almost all of them) have skeletons in their closets,” Marc Labelle said early on in his arguments at the Laval courthouse on Thursday.

He reminded the jury that some of those witnesses had to arrange for immunity from being charged if something incriminating about themselves emerged while they gave evidence against Accurso, 66, who faces five charges in all. He is alleged to have benefitted from a system of collusion organized by former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt between 1996 and 2010. Construction companies would kick back two per cent of the contracts they were awarded to Vaillancourt and other city officials. 

Labelle argued that some of the Crown’s own evidence indicates Accurso was considered an outsider to the owners and executives of the companies who formed part of the colluding group. He referred to the testimony of Gaétan Turbide, a former director general for the city of Laval who told the jury that at one point he wanted to fire Claude Deguise, the head of engineering for the city and a key player in the collusion scheme. 

“(Turbide said) all the entrepreneurs (involved in the scheme) wanted to keep him except for Accurso,” Labelle said. “Not only did Mr. Accurso want to get rid of the guy who ran the system, his opinion went against all of the others.

“You have no witnesses who said (Accurso) was part of the system.” 

Perhaps the most damaging witness presented by the prosecution was Gilles Théberge, an executive with two different companies while the system ran, between 1996 and 2010. He testified that, in 2005, Accurso intervened when Louisbourg Construction (a company owned by Accurso and run by his cousin, Giuseppe Molluso) and Valmont Nadon Excavation (a company Théberge ran) were mistakenly awarded the same $4-million contract by Vaillancourt. 

Labelle reminded the jury that Théberge suddenly recalled the meeting – held at the headquarters of several companies Accurso owned at the time – on the day Théberge was scheduled to testify before the jury. Labelle said Théberge failed to mention the meeting previously, when he was questioned several times by the police, including six days before he was called as a witness. 

“Is that reliable – that he remembers this only on the day of his testimony” Labelle said.

pcherry@postmedia.com 

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• Jury to deliberate next week
• The fix was in at Laval city hall for years, jury told at Accurso trial
• Laval corruption trial: Too focused to be involved in collusion, Accurso tells court

Former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt has been granted day parole on the sentence he received in December when he pleaded guilty to the system of collusion he ran while awarding city contracts to construction companies and engineering firms. 

The Parole Board of Canada made the decision on Thursday and a written summary of the decision was released to the Montreal Gazette on Friday, just hours after the trial of Antonio Accurso ended in a mistrial.

Accurso is alleged to have been one of the people who took part in the system of collusion. 

This story will be updated. 

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Loose lips sunk the ship that was Antonio Accurso’s fraud and municipal corruption trial in Laval. 

A juror’s inability to respect two cardinal rules that come with being part of a jury trial in Canada brought a sudden and unexpected end to the trial of the 66-year-old construction entrepreneur whose notoriety made him the poster boy of municipal corruption in Quebec. The trial ended abruptly in a mistrial on Friday.

Prosecutor Richard Rougeau was minutes away from make his closing arguments when Superior Court Justice James Brunton was handed a note from one of the jurors on the panel. The woman referred to in court only as Juror No. 6 informed Brunton that earlier in the week a distant relative who is also her landlord told her something about one of the Crown’s most important witnesses that was not part of the evidence heard in the trial that began on Oct. 19. 

Accurso still faces five charges alleging he was part of a system of collusion organized by former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt in which city contracts were awarded to a large group of companies before being put up for tender. The system ran between 1996 and 2010 and the colluding companies were left to arrange fake bids. The companies also agreed to kickback two per cent of the value of the contracts to Vaillancourt and other Laval city officials. 

When the jury was selected, Brunton gave the jurors a standard set of instructions to follow throughout the trial. One is that jurors are not supposed to discuss the trial with anyone while it is going on. Judges often use conversations with relatives as an example of something to avoid if those relatives bring up the trial. Another more easily defined instruction forbids jurors from discussing the trial with fellow jurors before deliberation begins. 

As Brunton was informed of Friday morning, Juror No. 6 did not respect either instruction. The woman was called before Brunton to explain what was behind her note. She said that earlier in the week, her landlord told her he previously knew Marc Gendron, a man Vaillancourt assigned to collect the kickback payments, and had seen a briefcase full of cash inside a conference room in Gendron’s offices that was related to municipal corruption in Laval. 

“He said it was big what had happened in Laval. He said it was like a Mafia that was running this,” Juror No. 6 said in a comment that caused Accurso’s lawyer, Marc Labelle to wince. 

Juror No. 6 also said she shared the information with two other jurors – No. 1 and No. 7 – during a casual conversation when they arrived at the courthouse on Thursday. 

“Did you add the opinion of your (distant relative), for example that it was run by the Mafia,” Brunton asked. 

“I don’t believe so,” Juror No. 6 said in an unconvincing manner. She then blurted out: “No, no, no, no. I didn’t.” 

Brunton then called in the other two jurors and asked them what they had been told. Juror No. 1 said: “I have no memory of this.” Juror No. 7 said her fellow juror only spoke in general terms and offered no details. 

The judge then called in all of the jurors, except for No. 6, and asked them all if she had told them anything about Gendron. They all shook their heads in unison.  

Brunton then determined that what the other jurors told him was incompatible with what Juror No. 6 had admitted. 

“I don’t see how this trial can be viable,” Brunton said while finding the jury had likely been contaminated by Juror No. 6. “It is too dangerous to continue.” 

When he informed the jury as a whole of his decision to declare a mistrial, Brunton said he was not assigning blame to anyone. He also noted that it was the first time in his 15 years on the bench that he had declared a mistrial. 

“This touches on Gendron, one of the most important witnesses, if not the most important witness, in the trial,” Brunton said. “I don’t want to take a chance. I can’t control what happened.” 

Gendron testified that several years ago Accurso handed him $200,000 in cash and that he delivered it to Jean Gauthier, a notary who worked for the former Laval mayor’s political party. 

Gendron was the only witness who connected Accurso to cash exchanging hands. 

Kim Hogan, one of the lawyers who represented Accurso during his trial, said the defence would have no comment on what happened. 

Brunton’s case will return to court in January to possibly set a date for a new trial. Jean-Pascal Boucher, a spokesperson for the director of criminal and penal prosecutions, said the prosecution will be ready to proceed with a new trial when the time comes. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Tap here to find out more about corruption in Laval and Montreal

A judge who made controversial comments toward the 17-year-old victim of a sexual assault has been removed from the case at the Montreal courthouse as it enters the sentencing stage. 

Quebec Court Judge Jean-Paul Braun was not on the bench Monday for sentencing arguments in the sexual assault case against Carlo Figaro, 49, of Terrebonne. On May 5, Figaro was convicted of one count of sexual assault. But, as was revealed by the Journal de Montréal in October, during the trial, Braun made inappropriate comments about the victim before delivering his verdict. 

“We can say she is a little overweight, but she has a pretty face, huh,” said Braun at one point. He also suggested the 17-year-old victim might have been “a little flattered” by the attention Figaro had given her. The judge often thinks out loud while he reaches his decisions. 

Figaro was working as a cabbie when the sexual assault occurred on Aug. 24, 2015, and was hired by the victim to drive her home from her work. During the ride, Figaro complimented the teen and asked her for her phone number. She testified that she gave him the number out of a fear he would lock her inside his cab. 

Figaro, who is appealing the verdict, also licked the victim’s face and touched her in a sexual manner. 

After Braun’s comments were published last month, Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée called the remarks unacceptable and said she intends to file a complaint with the Conseil de la magistrature du Québec (a judicial council that oversees the behaviour of judges). 

On Monday, Quebec Court Judge Lori Renée Weitzman informed both sides in the case that she will take over the sentencing stage of the trial. A letter signed by Braun, announcing that “the Court is divesting itself from the case” was entered into the court record. 

Prosecutor Amélie Rivard and defence lawyer Julie Anne Marinier originally agreed to carry the sentencing arguments to a date in February to allow the judge time to become familiar with the case. But Weitzman disagreed and said nine months was too long a delay. 

“I know it is difficult when a new judge takes over a case but the victim is looking for closure and so is the accused,” Weitzman said before convincing the lawyers to agree to hold the sentencing arguments on Dec. 14. 

Rivard said that the victim will not be making a statement as part of the Crown’s sentencing arguments. 

“The impact of what has happened has affected her a lot,” Rivard said, in reference to the widespread media attention her case saw when Braun’s remarks were reported. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

The lawyers representing the young Montreal couple charged with a series of terror-related offences will not mount a defence in the case. 

Attorneys Charles Benmouyal and Tiago Murias made the announcement to the jury Tuesday afternoon. That means the accused, Sabrine Djermane, 21, and El Mahdi Jamali, 20, will present no evidence in their defence on charges alleging they tried to leave Canada during the spring of 2015 to join the terrorist group ISIL in Syria. They are also charged with possessing some of the materials to build a pressure-cooker bomb based on instructions published in terrorist propaganda magazine called Inspire. As is standard in all criminal trials in Canada, the person accused of a crime is not required to present a defence because the burden rests entirely on the Crown to prove their case. 

The announcement came on a day that involved a few developments in the trial even though no evidence was presented to the jury. Earlier, the presiding judge, Superior Court Justice Marc David, informed the jury that he was withdrawing one of the four charges originally filed in the case. The jury has not heard evidence since Nov. 7 and, David explained, the delay was attributable to how he had to hear arguments on two motions related to the charges. 

David did not explain to the jury why he was withdrawing the charge. The charge alleged Djermane and Jamali “facilitated a terrorist act” between Feb. 4, 2015, and April 14, 2015. 

The couple remain accused of attempting to leave Canada with the goal of committing a terrorist act in another country, being in possession or in control of explosive substances and committing a criminal act for the benefit or under the direction of a terrorist group. 

The Crown’s theory is that Djermane and Jamali were preparing to leave Canada to travel to Syria to join ISIL in 2015 and that they were preparing a pressure-cooker bomb similar to the ones set off at the Boston Marathon in 2013. 

In another development in the trial, David agreed with a request from one of the jurors (referred to in court only as Juror No. 3) to be excused from the panel for personal reasons. David did not say what was behind the request, but he noted that it involved a situation that Juror No. 3 brought up a few weeks ago. 

“I find it is justified,” David said while also informing the jury that the trial will probably be over before the holidays begin in December. 

Closing arguments will begin on Dec. 4. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Montreal terror trial facing a significant delay, jury told

A lawyer representing Randy Tshilumba has filed a notice of appeal of the jury’s verdict that found him guilty last month of first-degree murder in the death of Clémence Beaulieu-Patry. 

During the trial, defence lawyers Philippe Larochelle and Sébastien Chartrand mounted a defence arguing their client suffered from a mental health problem and was delusional long before he stabbed the victim while she was working at a Maxi supermarket on Papineau Ave. on April 10, 2016. Tshilumba testified in his defence and said he was convinced that Beaulieu-Patry and a small group of her friends were plotting to do him harm. Tshilumba and Beaulieu-Patry attended the same high school, years before she was killed, and they barely knew each other. 

The notice of appeal, filed by a different lawyer named Julie Giroux, raises six legal arguments and all are related to Tshilumba’s mental state. For example, Giroux questions whether the presiding judge in the trial, Superior Court Justice Hélène Di Salvo, made an error by allowing a psychiatrist to answer a question, posed by a member of the jury, concerning what Tshilumba’s life would be like if he were convicted of murder. Giroux also questions whether Di Salvo made an error when she addressed the juror’s question during her final instructions to the jury. 

The Quebec Court of Appeal received the notice on Monday. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Randy Tshilumba found guilty of murder in Maxi stabbing

A 75-year-old man appeared before a Quebec Court judge at the Montreal courthouse on Monday and was charged with the first-degree murder of his stepson. 

Gilles Marion said very little when his case came up. He appeared before the judge via a video link-up with the Rivière des Prairies Detention Centre. His lawyer merely asked that the case be carried over to Dec. 8 for a formality hearing. The attorney also asked that his client be treated in the detention centre’s infirmary because he requires dialysis treatments three times a week. 

Marion was also ordered to not communicate with two people while his case is pending. At least one of the two people he is not allowed to talk to is a relative of Abdel Hakim Fleury, the 21-year-old victim of the fatal shooting. According to the Montreal police, Marion is the spouse of Fleury’s mother, but was not related to the victim directly. 

Police were first alerted to the shooting Sunday afternoon when someone made a 911 call reporting a conflict in an apartment in Rosemont on 18th Ave. between Mont-Royal Ave. and St-Joseph Blvd. When they entered the building, police officers found Fleury inside. He had been shot more than once. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but died a short while later. 

The homicide was the 21st reported on the island of Montreal this year. There were 21 homicides reported during the corresponding period last year. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

Harinder Singh Cheema, a man who was on Quebec’s most wanted list for years when he disappeared after he stabbed his wife, was found guilty of second-degree murder. 

A jury that had been deliberating since Thursday informed Superior Court Justice Pierre Labrie of their decision Tuesday morning. None of the 12 jurors looked toward Cheema, 38, as they entered the courtroom with the decision in the jury foreperson’s hands. As Cheema himself said repeatedly when he testified in his defence, on Nov. 1, the only thing the jury had left to decide was whether he had the intention to kill his wife, Gurpreet Kaur, when he stabbed her 14 times on Dec. 24, 2007, inside their apartment in the St-Laurent borough.

Cheema claimed that Kaur was stressed after having delivered their second child and that they had argued for days before he stabbed her. He said she came at him with a knife and that he grabbed the knife from her. He also said he stabbed her in anger because she had insulted his sister and mother by calling them whores. But Cheema likely did not help his case much, as he ended up shouting toward the jury at least twice while he testified. 

“Basically, she provoked me to do something. I don’t know how many times I stabbed her,” Cheema said earlier this month in a part of his testimony the jury apparently did not believe. Cheema, who is represented by attorney Clemente Monterosso, asked the jury to consider him guilty of manslaughter, a Criminal Code offence that can carry a much lighter sentence. 

A second-degree murder verdict carries an automatic life sentence but it will be up to Labrie to set Cheema’s parole eligibility at anywhere between 10 and 25 years. Labrie asked the jury for their recommendations on parole eligibility and their replies ranged between 10 and 15 years. Labrie will hear arguments on Cheema’s eligibility on Thursday. 

Cheema was on Quebec’s most wanted list for years after Kaur was killed. He told the jury that, after the stabbing, he dropped off his two young children with a friend and headed to Ontario. He was working at the time as a truck driver and had hoped his employer could assign him to deliver a load to British Columbia where he had friends. Cheema was informed that all trucks to B.C. had departed for the Christmas holidays so he convinced a colleague, who was not aware Kaur had been killed, to help finance his trip to the west. Once he made it to B.C. he convinced a fellow trucker to help him cross the border into the U.S. 

Cheema also told the jury he had built a new life for himself in California before he was arrested in June 2015 when Interpol learned he was living under an alias. Cheema told the jury he had met another woman in California and began a relationship with her. They married in India (to avoid the risk of having his true identity revealed in the U.S.) and worked for his wife’s father at one of a chain of gas stations his father-in-law owned in California. Cheema said his second wife had no idea of what he did in Montreal. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Harinder Singh Cheema, one of Quebec's most wanted, arrested in San Francisco
• 'She tried to stab me,' man accused in death of wife tells court

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Cheema was on Canada’s most-wanted list. He was on Quebec’s list. The Montreal Gazette regrets the error.

An environmental group is challenging the provincial government in court and alleging Quebec is ramming through the Réseau électrique métropolitain (REM) light-rail train system while attempting to sidestep all sustainable development laws. 

Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeau is expected to hear arguments on the admissibility of evidence in the case for the rest of this week at the Montreal courthouse.

The group, Coalition Climat Montréal, and five individual plaintiffs are asking that the plan to build a light-rail network — linking the South Shore, the West Island and Deux-Montagnes to both the airport and the downtown core — be halted until further environmental impact studies are done. The group is also arguing that the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) hearings that were held concerning the project were a farce because its promoters did not supply complete information on what they intend to build. 

“The project wasn’t defined. They did not give us enough time. There was not enough information available,” Ricardo Hrtschan, a lawyer representing Coalition Climat Montréal, told reporters during a break in the proceedings on Tuesday. “We’re contesting the way in which the process was done, without the principal information.

“The (provincial) government does not want to act honourably, as it should. We are asking the court to intervene, to force the government to do a real study as required by law.”

In January, the BAPE released a report withholding approval of the project because it said many questions remained unanswered. John Symon, one of the plaintiffs trying to halt the project, noted on Tuesday that REM added three additional stops along the network after BAPE hearings were held. The group is also asking that the federal government become involved in the environmental approval process because the network would involve building a tunnel on federal property (the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport), the construction of bridges over rivers and a rail line on the Champlain Bridge, which is run by a federal authority. 

“The (BAPE) consultation that took place was on an undisclosed project. The route was not established, there were no studies done on alternative measures, no studies done on the greenhouse gas effects. Everything that was done was done on promises or half-truths or information that was not available,” Hrtschan said. “Basically, the government went around everything that is provided for in the sustainable development and environment laws.”

Despite the BAPE’s report in January, the provincial government adopted legislation in September removing red tape allowing for the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec to move ahead with the $6-billion project. The Caisse called it an essential step toward confirming them access to the land that will be used for stations. 

Nathalie Fiset, a lawyer for Quebec’s attorney general who was before Yergeau on Tuesday, told reporters the focus of this week’s hearings should be on the legislation adopted in September. Coalition Climat Montréal is arguing the legislation violates two sections of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

“What is left is a debate on the validity of the law because, evidently, the law should conform to the charter,” Fiset said.

“Our stance is that the demands of the (environment group) have no foundation in fact. Nothing in the facts supports their allegations. They are all just hypotheses, suppositions and fears that are not supported by evidence.” 

pcherry@postmedia.com

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A man who once served as the director general of the city of Lorraine for more than two decades will be sentenced in December for having sexually abused four boys, including at least a couple during a time when he worked for the city. 

Roger Lepage, 76, of Lévis, is facing the possibility of an overall five-year prison term followed by five years of close surveillance as a long-term offender when Quebec Court Judge Pierre Labelle delivers his decision in December. The sentence was part of a joint recommendation proposed by prosecutor Cynthia Gyenizse and defence lawyer Mia Manocchio, the attorneys involved in Lepage’s case, at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday.

Lepage was originally arrested, along with 14 other men, early in 2016 as part of an investigation led by the Sûreté du Québec dubbed Operation Malaise. It uncovered a sophisticated, computer-savvy network of pedophiles who shared information. After Lepage was charged in Operation Malaise, investigators learned he had abused boys over a long period of time between 1995 and 2003. Lepage worked as city manager of Lorraine between 1980 and 2000. 

On Dec. 16, 2016, Lepage pleaded guilty to six child porn charges filed against him in Operation Malaise and to several charges including sexual interference, sexual exploitation and invitation to sexual touching.

Gyenizse told Labelle that three of the four victims Lepage abused were unable to make victim impact statements in open court because they are still deeply affected by what happened to them as boys. She said Lepage manipulated his victims by giving them gifts, buying them clothes and taking them to places their parents couldn’t afford. He also gave them alcohol and, in some cases, drugs. One of the victims feels guilty to this day because he invited his friends over to Lepage’s home and his boat and they were abused as well. 

“We can imagine what state he is in today,” Gyenizse said. 

The one victim who was able to address the court on Thursday is now a young man (due to a publication ban his name and age cannot be published) who said he has difficulty controlling his emotions, which caused him to lose his job. 

“I am now in debt and I don’t see a way out of it,” said the victim who could be seen squeezing a stress ball inside the courtroom before and after he testified. A special constable was strategically placed in between Lepage and the two victims who were in court on Thursday. 

He also said the pain Lepage caused him has made social interaction awkward. He also said he hesitates every time he thinks of hugging his three-year-old niece because he wonders if it is appropriate to touch her. 

“I’d rather stay in my bubble. It’s less complicated,” the victim said while asking Labelle to accept the sentence recommendation. “He ruined the lives of many children, not just mine.”  

This story will be updated.

pcherry@postmedia.com

A man who was once one of the most powerful Hells Angels in Quebec has gained another step toward freedom on the sentence he is serving for plotting to murder rival gang members as the Parole Board of Canada has agreed he no longer needs to reside at a halfway house. 

During Quebec’s biker war – a conflict between the Hells Angels and an alliance of rival criminal organizations that ran between 1994 and 2002 – Normand Robitaille, 49, graduated from the lowest ranks of the biker gang to being, by the late 1990s, one of its key decision makers. 

In 2003, he pleaded guilty to being part of a general conspiracy to murder members of rival gangs like the Rock Machine and the Bandidos and was sentenced to 17 years on top of the time he had already served following his arrest in Operation Springtime 2001. Evidence presented at trial in cases related to the police investigation revealed that, by 2001, Robitaille operated within the Hells Angels at a level similar to that of Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the leader of the gang’s elite Nomads chapter based in Montreal. Besides being involved in top level decisions on cocaine and hashish trafficking he was also in charge of recruiting new members for the gang.

After he began serving the sentence, Robitaille swore he had quit the gang and, in 2009, the Sûreté du Québec agreed that, by all appearances, he is no longer a Hells Angel. Despite this, strict conditions were placed on Robitaille’s statuary release in 2015, including one requiring that he reside at a halfway house while he tried to drum up business as a legitimate businessman. 

In 2016, his release was suspended and he was returned to a penitentiary twice after Correctional Service Canada raised questions, in February 2016, about how he was spending his time when he wasn’t at a halfway house and, in July 2016, when his parole officer was advised Robitaille might be charged with assault.

According to a summary of a decision taken by the Parole Board of Canada earlier this week, Robitaille had attended a wedding, held in June 2016, and another guest told the convict he wasn’t welcome at the reception. The exchange became heated and a third person, who was inebriated, grabbed Robitaille. The former member of the world’s most notorious outlaw biker gang later told the parole board he merely shoved the drunken wedding guest away from him and left the reception before things got out of hand. 

Robitaille was released from a penitentiary last year after having explained his side of the story to the parole board. But he was required to return to a halfway house. Since February, Robitaille has questioned the need for him to live at such a place while arguing he has been transparent with his parole officer. 

In its decision delivered earlier this week, the Parole Board of Canada agreed with Robitaille. 

“(Y)ou have made a significant change in your attitude and in your collaboration with your case-management team (which prepares an offender for release),” the author of the summary of the decision wrote. “You have maintained a positive attitude over the past year and you seem to have respected all of the rules attached to your (conditional release).” 

Robitaille’s sentence will expire in 2020.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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The city of Laval’s former director of engineering will be released to a halfway house sometime next month after having served only five months of a 30-month federal prison term he received this past summer for his role in co-ordinating the system of collusion used to award city contracts for 14 years. 

The Parole Board of Canada made its decision to grant Claude Deguise, 61, both day and full parole last week, and a summary of the decision was released to the Montreal Gazette on Monday. In July, Deguise pleaded guilty to being part of the system that was run by former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt between 1996 and 2010. Vaillancourt would decide which construction and engineering contracts would be awarded to colluding companies before they were even put up for tender. In exchange for being part of the system, the companies would kick back two per cent of the value of the contracts to Vaillancourt. 

During the trial of construction entrepreneur Antonio Accurso, which recently ended in a mistrial, Deguise was described as a middleman between the companies and Vaillancourt. One witness testified that Deguise told him how the strategy worked after he was surprised to learn his company had been awarded a contract it had yet to even bid on. Deguise worked as the city’s head of engineering from 1997 until he resigned in 2008. 

He is one of only a handful of men who were sentenced to prison terms in Project Honorer — the UPAC investigation that produced the arrests of 37 people in 2013 — so far. Deguise told the federal parole board he decided to stop working for Laval because he was being told to apply more pressure on the colluding companies. He claims to have made no money from participating in the scheme even though Vaillancourt was found to have more than $7 million stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. 

Deguise has already been accepted as a candidate to reside at a halfway house and will automatically be eligible for full parole. Like Vaillancourt, Deguise benefitted from a technicality when he was sentenced because the conspiracy he admitted to being part of stretched back to 1996, when federal legislation allowed an offender serving their first federal sentence to be eligible for parole after having served one-sixth of their time, as opposed to one-third, if their crimes did not involve violence. The legislation was changed years ago, but a decision made by a Quebec judge in 2011 allowed for the legislation to apply if the crime fell within a period when it was on the books. 

Vaillancourt, the mastermind behind the entire scheme, was sentenced to a six-year prison term in December, by far the harshest sentence delivered in the case so far. He also was recently granted a form of day parole that will allow the former mayor to leave a federal penitentiary during the day so he can perform volunteer work. 

The Montreal Gazette has also learned that Marc Lefrançois, 59, the president of one of the many companies that took part in the vast system of collusion, was granted parole on Friday. 

Lefrançois, 59, the president of Poly Excavation Inc., a construction company based in Blainville, was also eligible for parole after having served one-sixth of his sentence because his prison term was under two years and therefore falls under provincial detention legislation. 

According to a decision made by the Commission québécoise des libérations conditionnelles (CQLC, the provincial parole board), Lefrançois was able to leave a detention centre on Friday, less than four months after he was sentenced on Aug. 10 at the Laval courthouse. According to the Quebec business registry, he is still listed as the company’s president. He took over the family business after his father died in 1995. 

Lefrançois told the provincial parole board that while he is not certain if the system of collusion was already in place before he took over his father’s company, he agreed to take part in it because the firm depended heavily on work from municipal contracts. 

“The easiness (that came with being one of the colluding companies) played a role in your motivation in implicating yourself in the system that was in place. You wanted to preserve the family business. You specify that you made no substantial gain with all that has happened and that the risk of you becoming implicated in any type of criminal activity is nil,” the author of the CQLC decision wrote.  

Laval’s former director general, Claude Asselin, is currently behind bars for his role in the collusion scheme.

Luc Lemay, 69, the former head of a construction company who was sentenced to a 21-month prison this past summer, was granted parole on Oct. 25. 

Ronnie (René) Mergl, 69, another entrepreneur who admitted to being part of Vaillancourt’s scheme, has a sentence hearing scheduled for Friday.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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