Accurso Lawyer says crown witnesses are unreliable
The only thing worse than one unreliable witness in a jury trial is eight unreliable witnesses, Antonio Accurso’s lawyer said on Thursday while making his closing arguments in the construction magnate’s corruption and collusion trial.
Marc Labelle told the five women and seven men on the panel hearing the trial at the Laval courthouse that he found at least 25 significant contradictions while comparing the testimony of several of the prosecution witnesses who had been called to the stand since they began hearing evidence on May 18.
The attorney also referred to eight of the Crown’s 11 witnesses as “criminals” who have either pleaded guilty to criminal charges or made deals with the police to avoid being charged with being part of the system of collusion run by former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt and other city officials between 1996 and 2010.
“Eight (admitted to criminal behaviour during their testimony), and we’re not talking about impaired driving here. We’re talking about people who have records for being dishonest,” Labelle said to the jury. “You know what is worse than a witness who is unreliable? It’s eight witnesses who are unreliable.”
Early in the trial, the jury was informed that one of the witnesses Labelle was referring to, Mario Desrochers, the former head of the paving company Sintra, pleaded guilty to criminal charges last year. Desrochers provided perhaps the most direct evidence that Accurso had knowledge the system of collusion existed.
On May 24, Desrochers testified that he represented Sintra’s interests in the system — where the city of Laval issued contracts to a large group of colluding companies before they were even put to tender — between 2000 and 2005. Desrochers testified that he was overwhelmed by the complicated system and that, in 2002, a meeting was quickly arranged to address his concerns.
He said the meeting was held at Accurso’s offices in St-Eustache, and that Accurso was in attendance along with Nicolo (Mr. Sidewalk) Milioto, Frank and Tony Catania, as well as Ronnie (René) Mergl — all the heads of construction companies. Desrochers testified that Accurso spoke during the meeting but couldn’t recall what he said.
“Consider who (the evidence of the 2002 meeting ) came from. The most contradicted witness in this whole trial,” Labelle said of Desrochers while also noting the witness suddenly recalled the meeting a few weeks before Accurso’s trial began and had not mentioned it to police investigators previously.
Labelle also accused another prosecution witness, Gilles Théberge, the former head of Valmont Beaulieu Excavation Inc., of having convenient timing when it came to recalling key evidence for the prosecution. He reminded the jury that during Accurso’s first trial on the same charges, Théberge took the stand and suddenly recalled that, in 2005, Accurso intervened when one of his companies and Valmont Beaulieu Excavation Inc. were awarded the same $4-million contract by mistake.
Labelle asked the jury to question how reliable that evidence could be considering Théberge met with police investigators 25 times, between 2012 and 2017, and did not mention the $4-million contract.
“Do you have one reason, just one, to set aside the testimony of Mr. Accurso?” Labelle asked. He was referring to how Accurso testified in his defence on Monday and Tuesday and said he did not know of the collusion system. A prosecution witness who collected kickback money testified that two of Accurso’s companies — Louisbourg Construction and Simard-Beaudry Inc. — were the biggest contributors to the system where companies kicked back two per cent of the value of the contracts they were awarded to Laval city officials.
Accurso, 66, faces five charges in all, including conspiracy, fraud and breach of trust.
Prosecutor Richard Rougeau is scheduled to make his closing arguments on Friday.