Prosecution wraps up at Contrecoeur trial
There was a conspiracy from the beginning of the $300-million Contrecoeur land deal to rig the call for bids in favour of Construction Frank Catania et Associés Inc., the prosecution said on Tuesday in its final arguments at the fraud and conspiracy trial of former Montreal city hall No. 2 politician Frank Zampino and five former executives of the firm.
“It’s not an accumulation of irregularities, it’s more than an accumulation of irregularities,” prosecutor Nicole Martineau said in her final arguments at the twoyear trial presided over by Court of Quebec Judge Yvan Poulin.
“They’re serious events,” Martineau added, which included private meetings, the exchange of privileged information and the exclusion of the competition in what amounted to a “rigged call for tenders.”
Zampino, Paolo Catania, who was president of Construction Frank Catania et Associés, and four other top managers of the firm were arrested in 2012 in connection with the sale of the city-owned land known as Faubourg Contrecoeur at a discounted price in 2007.
The city’s real-estate agency, Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), which sold the land, discounted $14.7 million for decontamination and other costs from the $19.1-million winning bid submitted by Construction Frank Catania et Associés. The firm wound up paying $4.4 million to purchase the land and build a housing project valued at $300 million.
The trial, which was before a judge and no jury, heard final arguments from the defence last week.
One element the prosecution insisted on in its case is that Zampino and Catania admitted in their respective testimonies that they met six times in 2006 during a period the prosecution contends it was known that the SHDM would hold a public call for bids to sell the Contrecoeur land, and that Zampino, as executive committee chairman at the time, had no right to meet and discuss the project with the entrepreneur.
Poulin, who peppered Martineau with questions and challenged the prosecution’s theories during its final arguments, said a key issue that needs to be resolved to arrive at a verdict is whether the meetings were illegal, as the prosecu- tion contends, or a product of looser political mores that existed before the Charbonneau Commission and that tolerated promiscuity between public servants and entrepreneurs bidding on municipal contracts, as the defence contends.
The judge also suggested the prosecution lacks a smoking gun in the way of evidence that anyone in authority gained from rigging the bids.
“You’re saying it’s illegal,” Poulin told Martineau when she raised Zampino and Catania’s meetings. “I don’t follow you … You don’t have a brown envelope with $300,000 in it.”
However, Martineau countered that it wasn’t the custom — even back then — for politicians to meet with entrepreneurs during a contract bid because it violates the principle of confidentiality in a public call for tenders.
The key, Martineau argued, is what a reasonable person would think and whether a reasonable person would know they engaged in an act of dishonesty.
She also argued that it was wellknown in 2006 that the SHDM would hold a public call for bids to sell the Contrecoeur land.
However, Poulin then raised the defence’s contention that the SHDM’s general director, Martial Fillion, began the process with a one-on-one negotiated sale and then flip-flopped sometime later in 2006 and ordered a public call for bids.
Fillion was also arrested in the Contrecoeur case in 2012, but died in 2013 while awaiting trial.
Another issue to resolve to reach a verdict, the judge said, is whether Fillion was merely incompetent and botched the management of the Contrecoeur sale or whether there was criminal activity involved.
One indication of the rigged process, Martineau argued, was that a rival bidder, Construction Marton, was told by an SHDM consultant who was overseeing the bidding process that the decontamination cost wasn’t available even though that figure was known to Construction Frank Catania et Associés. The latter firm had been shown the decontamination study by the SHDM’s consultants.
Another questioned raised by Poulin was whether the evidence presented at the trial shows that the officials of the Catania firm who are accused knew that they were the only ones with the information.
Martineau responded that the Catania firm officials participated in meetings with the SHDM’s consultants and exchanged information before the call for bids.
Zampino’s defence dedicates 40 pages of its written final arguments calling into question Lalonde’s credibility as a witness, Poulin said, so how does the prosecution respond to it, he asked.
However, Martin ea us aid La lon de had nothing to gain from testifying against the others, though the defence said he was granted immunity from prosecution. Martineau also said that Lalonde’s testimony was corroborated by the events that followed.
The defence is to briefly respond to the prosecution’s arguments on Wednesday, which will bring the trial to a close.