National Post (National Edition)
Former police investigator gets six months in jail
Defrauding provincial force in Quebec
MONTREAL• Af or merSûretéduQué be cinv es ti ga tor appeared both surprised and upset with a judge’s decision that will see him spend six months behind bars for defrauding his own police force.
Nicolas Landry, 43, clearly did not anticipate the possibility that the sentence delivered by Quebec Court Judge André Perreault on Thursday at the Montreal courthouse would include jail time.
His lawyer, Walid Hijazi, said as much when he asked the judge to “make an excep- tion” for Landry and delay the sentence for a week.
Perreault rejected the request outright and criticized Hijazi for not having asked for a delay before he delivered his decision and for having assumed his client wouldn’t be jailed.
Per re au lt sentenced Landry to a six-month prison term to be followed by one year of probation.
During sentence arguments in January, prosecutor Patrick Cardinal requested a one-year prison term while Hijazi argued for a sentence Landry could serve in the community by carrying out community service and by paying a $42,000 fine — the equivalent of what he was estimated to have defrauded out of his employers.
On Thursday, Hijazi asked Perreault for “less than a minute” for Landry to ex- plain why he preferred waiting a week before reporting to a detention centre. The lawyer said the residence of Landry’s sister-in-law was damaged in a recent fire and that his client could explain why the delay was necessary. But Perreault said Hijazi was too late, as he could have delayed delivering the sentence if Hijazi had simply asked beforehand.
“I hope one day I can explain this to you,” Landry said as he was handcuffed and taken into custody.
“Unbelievable,” Landry uttered before he was taken away.
Landry is the son of Jacques Landry, a retired member of the SQ who is well known in police circles. More than two decades ago, he created a new way for SQ officers to conduct interrogations.
During sentencing arguments, Jacques Landry said his son’s problems at the SQ began when fellow police officers harassed him over a book the father had published about investigation techniques. The father argued that if his son merited a sentence, he had already served it because of the media attention his case has drawn.
Perreault found Landry guilty of fraud last year. Landry was accused of lying to the SQ by saying he was too depressed to do police work while he was busy running a travel agency and expanding it by acquiring its competitors.
He stopped working for the SQ’S major crimes division in 2009 and continued to collect a salary while claiming to be sick for years. But, for several reasons, the period during which he was found guilty of committing fraud was limited to between May 22, 2014 and Nov. 20, 2014.
Perreault said he couldn’t understand why Hijazi suggested his client should pay a $42,000 fine instead of jail when, during Landry’s trial, it was established that the former police investigator declared bankruptcy in 2016. He also stopped receiving any form of salary from the SQ after he was convicted.
“The court is of the conviction that Mr. Landry does not have the capacity to pay the fine proposed by the defence (and) that the fine is not a fair sanction under the circumstances,” Perreault said as he read from his 21-page decision.
Landry has filed for an appeal of Perreault’s decision to convict him.