Four sentenced in municipal corruption case
Offenders won’t serve jail time as judge takes circumstances into consideration
The cases of more than two-thirds of the people who were charged in Laval’s municipal corruption case have been settled as four more men were sentenced on Wednesday, including the former head of construction companies owned by construction magnate Antonio Accurso.
None of the sentences delivered Wednesday involved the offenders having to serve jail time. But, as was explained to Superior Court Justice James Brunton during a hearing at the Laval courthouse, different circumstances were taken into consideration before Crown and defence attorneys made common suggestions on the sentences to the judge. For two of the men, age was a factor, and the roles the other two men played in a system of widespread collusion that plagued Laval’s city hall between 1996 and 2010 was minimal.
The men all pleaded guilty to charges filed against them in 2013 in Project Honorer, the same case that saw former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt sentenced to a sixyear prison term last year.
Giuseppe Molluso, 74, the former head of the Accurso-owned construction companies Simard Beaudry and Louisbourg Construction, was sentenced to a prison term of two years less one day that he can serve in the community. The first part of the sentence will be served through house arrest and the second part will involve a curfew. Molluso was also sentenced to two years of probation and is required to follow a series of conditions.
Brunton was also told that Molluso recently settled a civil lawsuit filed against him and several other people by the city of Laval by agreeing to pay the municipality an undisclosed sum. His lawyer described the settlement as “a substantial amount.”
Two others who were sentenced Wednesday — Guy Desjardins, 49, and Mike Mergl, 76 — received prison terms that can be served in the community. Prosecutor Claude Dussault told Brunton that Desjardins’s role in the collusion was limited to one contract awarded to an asphalt company, and that because Desjardins was an employee of the company he did not personally benefit from the crime. Mergl’s lawyer, Richard Brouillard, noted his client’s age and the fact Mergl still has to work to make ends meet, after his construction company went bankrupt, while requesting the sentence.
Rosaire Sauriol, 55, a former vice-president with Desseau, an engineering firm his father cofounded, opted to plead guilty to breach of trust, one of the five charges he faced in Project Honorer. As in Desjardins’s case, Sauriol’s role in the system of collusion was very limited when compared to others, lawyers from both sides of the floor told Brunton.
As part of his sentence, Sauriol was ordered to pay a $200,000 fine within the next 30 days, and he was sentenced to two years of probation.
There has yet to be a trial in Project Honorer, but jury selection in a trial involving at least two men — Accurso and Jean Gauthier — is scheduled to begin next month.
As of Wednesday, 20 of the 37 people who were charged in Project Honorer in 2013 have been sentenced. Four of those sentences have involved the offender having to spend time behind bars. Another three men are scheduled to be sentenced early in November.
Vaillancourt received a six-year prison term on Dec. 15 and Claude Deguise, the former head of engineering for the city of Laval, was sentenced to a 30-month prison term in July.
The other two men — Marc Lefrançois and Luc Lemay (both entrepreneurs who benefitted from the system of collusion that was created in the awarding of contracts) — were sentenced to prison terms of 21 months this summer.
Besides Accurso and Gauthier, another three men still have charges pending and six other accused had a stay of proceedings placed on their cases on different dates beginning late last year. Three of the accused died of natural causes after they were charged.