Key figure in sponsorship scandal to pay hefty fine
While he could still be sentenced to jail time next week, Jacques Corriveau, a key figure in the federal sponsorship scandal, has worked out a deal that could cost him more than $2 million.
Superior Court Justice JeanFrançois Buffoni is scheduled to deliver Corriveau’s sentence next week, and the Crown has asked that he serve between three and five years after having been convicted by a jury on three charges related to the federal sponsorship program. Sentencing arguments in late November debated how much the Crown should be able to fine Corriveau and confiscate assets that were frozen after he was charged.
Instead of leaving the decision up to the judge, both sides recently reached an agreement and presented it to Buffoni on Tuesday. The judge agreed Corriveau will be fined $1.4 million and the Crown will confiscate an investment account worth more than $853,000. Corriveau, 83, will have five years to pay the fine after the sentence he receives next week expires. In the same agreement, Corriveau agreed that the federal government can confiscate part of the proceeds of his home in St-Bruno, currently estimated to be worth $985,000, when it is sold. In November, Buffoni was told that Corriveau spent up to $500,000 in renovations to the home in 2004 and 2005. On Tuesday, Buffoni was informed that the prosecution cannot prove that the home was purchased with the proceeds of crime, so it won’t confiscate its full value when it is sold.
On Nov. 1, Corriveau, a longtime friend of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, was found guilty of influence peddling to defraud the government, producing fake documents and laundering the proceeds of crime. The crimes took place between 1997 and 2003, as part of the sponsorship program the Liberal government launched in 1997 in response to the 1995 referendum that almost saw Quebec separate from Canada. In November, Crown prosecutor Jacques Dagenais described Corriveau as someone who helped set up the system through which businesspeople were able to bill the government exorbitant amounts of money for very little work.