Tony Accurso gets four years, will appeal
Construction magnate Antonio (Tony) Accurso has been sentenced to a four-year prison term for his role in Laval’s system of collusion when it came to awarding municipal contracts.
While delivering the decision on Thursday, Superior Court Justice James Brunton cited the duration of the conspiracy, the fact public funds were involved and the impact on the public’s confidence on political institutions as being among the factors that contributed to his decision.
Following a lengthy trial that began in May, Accurso, 66, was convicted by a jury on all five of the charges he faced: two conspiracy charges, fraud, municipal corruption and breach of trust. The jury was obviously convinced Accurso actively participated in a system of collusion that was created and run by former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt between 1996 and 2010. Accurso testified in his defence and claimed he had no knowledge that two of his companies — Louisbourg Construction and Simard-Beaudry Inc. — were the two biggest colluding companies to take part in the scheme revealed by a UPAC investigation dubbed Project Honorer.
“Considering the number of conspirators — between 50 and 60 — and the duration — from January 1996 to September 2010 — the Court believes it is allowed to claim it was one of the worst, if not the worst, example of municipal corruption ever found before a Canadian court,” Brunton said on Thursday as he read from his 16-page decision. “The evidence, which was not contradicted, demonstrated that the criminal stratagem allowed the companies involved to make substantially higher profits than through a legitimate system of free bids.”
Accurso was sentenced to serve 48-month prison terms for his two fraud-related charges. He was also ordered to serve 30-month sentences, concurrently, for conspiring to corrupt municipal officials, municipal corruption and breach of trust.
Accurso’s lawyer, Marc Labelle, told reporters that Accurso is appealing both the jury’s verdict to convict and the sentence delivered by Brunton. The defence attorney said he will request a hearing before the Quebec Court of Appeal seeking to have his client released while the appeal is pending. Labelle said he expects the hearing to be held on Tuesday.
Only seven of the 27 people who pleaded guilty to charges in Project Honorer were sentenced to terms in which they had to serve time behind bars. That includes the six-year prison term Vaillancourt received at the end of 2016. Claude Deguise, the city’s former head of engineering, was sentenced to a 30-month prison term, and Claude Asselin, the city’s former director general, received a prison term of two years less one day.
SYSTEM OF COLLUSION
“The Court agrees with the submission made by the prosecution to the effect that if Mr. Accurso had decided not to participate in the system of collusion, the system would not have lasted as long as it did,” Brunton said while explaining the length of Accurso’s sentence.
“The evidence that his companies were the biggest in the construction domain in Laval was not contradicted. Without his support, the system of collusion would not have lasted.”
Brunton also said the evidence heard at trial revealed Accurso intervened in the conspiracy “at a crucial moment” in 2002. It came after one of his companies and a competitor were awarded the same contract by mistake. The president of Accurso’s company and the competitor couldn’t reach an agreement on how to deal with the error, and Accurso stepped in and said he would settle it with Vaillancourt.
The judge also noted that a prosecution witness testified that, also in 2002, Accurso held a meeting in his business offices in St-Eustache after one of the co-conspirators wanted to leave the system of collusion because he found it too complex.
“That meeting was important. As the Court has already noted, the illegal stratagem would have been in peril if only one person decided to denounce it, or if one company decided to no longer participate,” Brunton said.
During sentencing arguments last week, prosecutor Richard Rougeau asked for a five-year prison term and noted that Accurso’s two companies represented 25 per cent of the fraud committed. Labelle argued that his client should not receive a longer sentence than the one Giuseppe Molluso, the president of Louisbourg Construction, received last year. Molluso, Accurso’s cousin, is currently serv- ing a prison term of two years less one day that involves house arrest and a curfew.
Brunton compared Accurso’s sentence with the prison terms received by Asselin, Deguise and Ronnie (René) Mergl, 69, the owner of Nepcon, one of the colluding companies that participated in the system. Mergl received an 18-month prison term on Dec. 1. Accurso’s sentence is 30 months longer than Mergl’s, but the difference is that Mergl, Asselin and Deguise pleaded guilty, Brunton noted.
Brunton agreed with a request from Labelle that Accurso not be ordered to reimburse $1.6 million to the city of Laval. Brunton quoted from a Quebec Court of Appeal decision that determined such damages should be settled by a civil court. Accurso and his companies are currently named in a lawsuit filed by the city.
Accurso still faces fraud and breach of trust charges that were filed against him, a former Canada Revenue Agency employee and two other men in 2012 following an investigation by the RCMP. That case returns to court on July 12. Accurso has pleaded not guilty to all six of the charges he faces.