City corruption trial set to begin But Contrecoeur case could be delayed by motion seeking recusal of judge
The biggest municipal corruption trial in Montreal politics in recent memory is set to start on Monday.
That’s if a Quebec Superior Court judge at a hearing on Thursday allows the case against eight people and a construction company involved in a 2007 municipal realestate deal known as the Faubourg Contrecoeur to go ahead as scheduled.
The accused include former Montreal city councillor Frank Zampino, who was chairman of the city executive committee at the time of the Contrecoeur deal, former construction magnate Paolo Catania and Bernard Trépanier, the former director of fundraising for the Union Montreal party that was in power at city hall at the time. Trépanier was dubbed “Mr. Three Per Cent” at the Charbonneau Commission hearings as witnesses described him as the nexus in a collusion scheme under which the witnesses said he took three per cent from the value of rigged construction contracts for the political party.
They were arrested in May 2012, and they’ve opted for trial by judge alone.
Trépanier’s lawyer, Daniel Rock, in the meantime filed a motion seeking to have the judge who will preside over the trial, Quebec Court Judge Yvan Poulin, recuse himself. Rock’s motion said Poulin has a bias against him. Poulin rejected the motion. Rock is now contesting the decision with a petition to Superior Court to declare the lower court judge shouldn’t hear the case. The procedural wrangling would automatically delay the trial, however the Crown has filed a motion to have the Superior Court order the trial to proceed as scheduled.
The trial is expected to last three months.
The decision will be up to the Superior Court on Thursday, which will hear the arguments concerning Rock’s motion as well as the Crown’s request to have the trial proceed on Monday if the judge doesn’t render an immediate decision on Rock’s motion.
Ahead of the Superior Court’s decision, here is a primer on the Contrecoeur affair:
WHAT WAS THE CONTRECOEUR DEAL?
Faubourg Contrecoeur was a site owned by the city in the Mercier — Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough. The city mandated its real-estate agency, the Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal (SHDM), to sell the site for a residential development, called Nouveau Mercier, in 2006.
The SHDM sold the land to Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. in 2007 for $4.4 million, even though the land’s municipal assessment was $31 million. An audit for the SHDM on the Contrecoeur project by the firm Samson Bélair/ Deloitte & Touche in 2009 found several irregularities in the deal.
A liquidator was named to dispose of the assets of the construction company in 2014. A settlement was reached between the liquidator and the SHDM in 2015 to allow the agency to recover ownership of two parcels of land in Contrecoeur for the last two phases of affordable housing construction and ownership of part of a parcel of commercial land for a community project. The SHDM also receives $1.8 million and gets infrastructure work finished under the settlement.
As of 2015, 900 residential units had been built at the Contrecoeur site, and the SHDM said it anticipates another 900 units will be built by 2018.
WHAT ARE THE CHARGES?
The accused face a total of 10 charges, including fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust. Trépanier faces charges of frauds on government, in addition to fraud, breach of trust and conspiracy. Quebec’s permanent anti-corruption squad, UPAC, arrested nine people in May 2012. The construction company was also charged. One of the accused, Martial Fillion, who was general manager of the SHDM when it awarded the Contrecoeur contract to Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc., died in 2013. That leaves eight people and the company accused.
The accusations in the charge sheets relate to events that date back as far as 2004, before the contract was awarded, to March 2008, the year after the sale of the Contrecoeur site. The Crown last amended the charge sheets in April 2013.
If convicted, the offences carry punishments ranging from a maximum of five years in prison for breach of trust to a maximum of 14 years for fraud.
WHO ARE THE ACCUSED?
Frank Zampino, former Montreal city executive committee chairman and right-hand man to former mayor Gérald Tremblay from 2002-2008.
Bernard Trépanier, known as “Mr. Three Per Cent,” former director of financing for Zampino and Tremblay’s Union Montreal party.
Martial Fillion, who was general manager of the city real-estate agency Société d’habitation et de développement de Montréal when it awarded the Contrecoeur contract to Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. The agency fired Fillion over irregularities in 2008. Fillion was program manager for Union Montreal (formerly the Montreal Island Citizens Union) in the 2001 election campaign, then chief of staff to Tremblay at city hall before being hired at the SHDM. He died awaiting trial in 2013.
Daniel Gauthier, former president of urban planning firm Gauthier, Biancamano, Bolduc Inc., which became known as Plania in 2009 (Plania is a subsidiary of Dessau Capital Inc.). Was part of the selection committee for the Contrecoeur project in 2006.
Paolo Catania, former president of Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc., a shareholder of the company through a numbered holding company.
André Fortin, former general manager of Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc.; a shareholder of Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. through a numbered holding company.
Pasquale Fedele, a former director of Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. Martin D’Aoust, a shareholder of Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. through a numbered holding company.
Pascal Patrice, a former environmental director of Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc., the company that was chosen to develop the Contrecoeur site.
WHAT’S THE HOLDUP?
Rock’s motion contends Poulin has a bias against him dating back to a time five years ago when Poulin was a Crown prosecutor in a case against Rock’s client, Giuseppe “Ponytail” De Vito. (De Vito was an accused in the 2006 anti-Mafia police operation Projet Colisée, but was on the lam until his arrest in 2010. He was found guilty and sent to prison, where he died mysteriously by cyanide poisoning in July 2013.)
WHAT ARE SOME OTHER LOCAL MUNICIPAL CORRUPTION CASES?
In Montreal, former mayor Michael Applebaum, who was first elected to city council in 1994 and served as interim mayor for seven months before his arrest in June 2013 on 14 counts of fraud, corruption and bribery in connection with two real-estate projects in Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Damede-Grâce borough between 2006 and 2011. Applebaum was borough mayor during the period.
Applebaum, who resigned as mayor saying he would fight the charges, has elected for trial by judge. His trial is set for September 2017.
Also arrested in the case were Saulie Zajdel, a former city councillor in the borough, and former borough permits director JeanYves Bisson.
In May, Zajdel pleaded guilty to breach of trust and corruption and Bisson pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from businesspeople. Zajdel received a suspended sentence of 18 months and probation, during which time he will do 240 hours of community service. He was also ordered to donate $10,000 among four charities. Bisson received a conditional sentence of nine months to be served in the community. He was restricted to his residence for the first four months of the sentence and was under curfew for the rest. Bisson will be on parole for 18 months, during which time he will have to do 240 hours of community service. He must also donate $13,000 to a foundation.
North of Montreal, former longtime Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt was arrested by UPAC in May 2013 along with 36 businesspeople, former civil servants and political supporters. His trial isn’t expected to start before 2019.
Until now, Montreal’s biggest corruption scandal was related to cost overruns on construction work for the 1976 Olympics.
Three men were charged in the early 1980s as a result of a provincial inquiry headed by Justice Albert Malouf into the Olympic Games. Malouf’s report placed most of the blame for the Games’ $1-billion deficit on then-mayor Jean Drapeau.
Gérard Niding, who was chairman of Montreal’s executive committee, pleaded guilty to breach of trust and accepting a bribe for passing untendered Olympic construction contracts to an engineer, Régis Trudeau, who built a country house for him in exchange.
Niding was fined $75,000. Trudeau was convicted of breach of trust and fined $100,000. Claude Rouleau, a former Quebec deputy minister of public works and transport, was convicted and fined $31,000 for breach of trust for having received favours from government contractors relating to a dock built at his home.