Zampino at ease on stand
Denies he had power to award contracts
A calm and confident Frank Zampino squared off with the Charbonneau Commission’s chief prosecutor yesterday, the first day of his much-anticipated testimony. Monique Muise reports the former chairman of the city’s executive committee, and the man alleged by previous witnesses to have masterminded a system of collusion and bid-rigging on public contracts, questioned the legitimacy of evidence and tried to offer up some documents of his own.
“To conclude that Mr. Trépanier called me 1,800 times is fundamentally dishonest.”
FRANK ZAMPINO
He has been shunned by former colleagues, vilified by numerous witnesses and charged with fraud by the police, but on Wednesday, lawyers for the Charbonneau Commission quickly discovered that Frank Zampino still has plenty of fight left in him.
The former head of the city’s powerful executive committee and alleged collusion “mastermind” took the stand at the inquiry at 9:30 a.m. and promptly set to work countering all of the allegations against him — denying, for example, that he had the power to decide which companies were awarded which municipal contracts.
“It’s not the president of the executive committee who awards contracts,” he testified. “To think that is to misunderstand how the city of Montreal works.”
Zampino appeared calm and determined as he addressed Justice France Charbonneau and her cocommissioner, Renaud Lachance. With three lawyers seated behind him, the once-influential politician seemed to have an explanation for everything.
Construction bosses and engineering executives who showed up at municipal fundraisers were simply there to “network” and shake hands with him and former mayor Gérald Tremblay, he said.
His attendance at a wedding involving the Mafia-linked Di Maulo and Cotroni families in 1991 can be explained by the fact that he was invited by one of his campaign staffers, Mario Di Maulo.
And Rosaire Sauriol, a former executive at engineering firm Dessau, showed up at a 2006 meeting between Zampino and then-candidate for city manager, Claude Léger, because he was Léger’s friend — certainly not because the engineer was “meddling” in the hiring process.
“It wasn’t a job interview,” Zampino quipped.
The tension in the hearing room rose rapidly as the explanations poured forth, and inquiry chief counsel Sonia LeBel appeared to lose patience with the witness several times.
“You’re a master of answering my questions without answering my questions,” she remarked at one point.
“I take offence to that,” Zampino snapped back.
“You can take offence, but answer my question,” the lawyer replied.
The tension peaked when Zampino was confronted with phone records sug- gesting that between 2005 and 2009, he spoke more than 1,800 times with the head of financing for Union Montreal, Bernard Trépanier. The latter has been accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash donations on behalf of the party — allegations he has denied.
Zampino said one of the phone numbers Trépanier called was used by as many as five people at city hall. Not only that, he said, but he was away on vacation when dozens of the calls came in. During that four-year period, Zampino estimated, he probably only spoke to Trépanier directly about 200 times. The two men were long-time friends, he added, so that was hardly unusual.
“To conclude that Mr. Trépanier called me 1,800 times is fundamentally dishonest,” Zampino said. He even tried to produce a series of documents to help make his case, but LeBel quickly shot him down, explaining that if he wanted the inquiry to see his evidence, he should have handed it over to her before taking the stand. She said she would review the documents overnight.
The day began in far less dramatic fashion, with a careful review of Zampino’s 22-year career as a municipal politician, starting with his election to the St-Léonard city council in 1986 and ending with his abrupt departure from city hall five years ago.
“The city was healthy when I left in 2008,” Zampino boasted.
The 54-year-old had a relatively unblemished record when he resigned in May of that year, but a short time later, media reports revealed he had vacationed on the yacht of local construction magnate Tony Accurso around the time that a major city contract was being awarded to Accurso’s company. Then, in the spring of 2012, Zampino was arrested and charged, along with eight other suspects, in connection with the Faubourg Contrecoeur housing project in Montreal’s east end. He is alleged to have accepted unspecified “favours” in return for ensuring the $300-million contract was awarded to local construction firm Frank Catania & Associates.
Past witnesses at the Charbonneau Commission have suggested that Zampino was the true power at city hall, exerting influence far beyond that of former mayor Tremblay.
Asked point-blank on Wednesday if there was such a “two-headed” administration in place in the 2000s, Zampino maintained that Tremblay was the only one in charge.
His testimony is expected to continue on Thursday.