Man collared by UPAC in Jewish General scam granted parole
Leizerovici among those charged in Project Mercato
The owner of a renovation company who pleaded guilty in a UPAC case that revealed the Jewish General Hospital was billed for work actually done on the homes of several people, including a few of its administrators, has been granted early parole.
The Parole Board of Canada ordered that Gilbert Leizerovici, 54, of Côte-St-Luc, perform community service during the first four months out of eight he is required to spend on day parole at a halfway house before he is granted a full release.
He was one of six people charged in 2015 in connection with Project Mercato. The investigation by the provincial anti-corruption unit uncovered how the hospital was billed for work that Leizerovici’s company, R.A. Rénov-Action, and companies owned by other people did on private homes, including the residences of at least three of the institution’s administrators.
On Oct. 4, he pleaded guilty to six charges involving tax laws.
The decision to sentence Leizerovici to an 18-month prison term notes that he, Jeffrey Fields, the hospital’s former project manager, and Kotiel Berdugo, the hospital’s former director of technical services, took part in a conspiracy to bill the hospital for more than $300,000, between 2008 and 2013, for work that was never done there.
Three months later, on Jan. 8, Leizerovici pleaded guilty to several charges, filed as part of a Revenue Quebec investigation, involving false statements he submitted to receive tax credits and reimbursements. Those charges involved 202 invoices totalling more than $7 million that Leizerovici filed between 2008 and 2013. He was sentenced to a 27-month prison term to be served consecutive to the one he received in October. He has also been ordered to pay more than $460,000 in fines.
Because Leizerovici began committing his crimes before 2011, his sentence fell within legislation that made him eligible for day parole at the one-sixth mark of his sentence since his crimes did not involve violence. The law was changed in 2011, requiring that all inmates serve at least one-third of their sentence before they are eligible.
Leizerovici was the only person charged in Project Mercato who received a sentence that involved having to serve time behind bars.
Fields, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, pleaded guilty last year to violating two counts of the federal Excise Act and to related violations of the provincial Tax Administration Act. He received a 12-month term he is serving in the community. Berdugo pleaded guilty to violating the Excise Act and was fined $133,000. Charges filed against three other people were stayed last year.
Leizerovici’s case-management team (the people who help prepare an inmate for release) was asked to prepare an assessment for the Parole Board of Canada in March, just two months after his combined sentences became a federal prison term. They advised the board that it was too early to tell if he was ready for release. But according to a written summary of the board’s recent decision, Leizerovici’s file included a convincing letter he penned expressing regret for what he did.