Mistrial declared for man accused of defrauding city

Second attempt to convict consultant charged in $4.6-million case collapses

The seemingly never-ending saga that involves how the City of Montreal was bilked out of more than $4 million by one of its employees more than a decade ago has taken another twist, as the second jury trial of the employee’s alleged accomplice ended in a mistrial.

A jury hearing the fraud trial of Benoît Bissonnette, 58, for several weeks learned its work was all for nothing on Wednesday after Superior Court Justice Alexandre Boucher declared a mistrial because the prosecution erred by referencing evidence that had been declared inadmissible.

Bissonnette and Gilles Parent, the former section chief of the city’s computer technology division, were first charged in 2009. In 2012, Parent pleaded guilty to fraud and breach of trust and was sentenced to a six-year prison term. He admitted to having created a company under a false name and using a system of pre-billing to swindle the city out of $4.6 million from December 2006 to September 2008.

Bissonnette, a private consultant who worked with Parent, underwent his first trial in the case in 2015 and a jury found him not guilty of breach of trust and conspiracy to do the same. The Crown appealed the case based on arguments that the first trial judge made errors when he instructed the jury before deliberations began. On Dec. 18, 2018, the appellate court ordered a second trial.

The jury in the second trial began hearing evidence at the Montreal courthouse on Feb. 20. The trial was paused on March 16 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as it was impossible for a jury to practise social distancing in a regular courtroom. By then, the jury had already heard from 17 witnesses and more than 180 documents had been deposited as evidence.

The case was transferred to the Gouin courthouse, which features two very spacious courtrooms designed for so-called mega-trials, and the jury resumed hearing evidence at the end of June.

On April 24, while the jury was on pause, Boucher ordered that documents related to the incorporation of a company called YZB Trade Agent, which had been set up in Hong Kong, were inadmissible because they constituted hearsay.

On Aug. 10, after the trial resumed, the Crown declared it had no more evidence to present.

Bissonnette’s lawyer, Marc Labelle, began the defence of his client later that week.

While cross-examining the first defence witness, Bissonnette’s wife, the prosecution began asking her questions about YZB Trade Agent, including whether it was established in the name of one of her relatives. According to the motion Labelle later filed seeking the mistrial, some of the questions

touched on the inadmissible evidence and were based on a theory that was “completely far-fetched and devoid of any factual basis known to the defence.”

Labelle objected to the questions and argued that Bissonnette’s right to a fair trial had been violated.

“I asked for a mistrial,” Labelle told the Montreal Gazette. “We argued it on Tuesday and the judge made his decision on Wednesday.”

After the judge delivered his decision, he brought the 11 jurors back and informed them the case in which they had invested months of their time had come to an end. One juror got up before Boucher was finished addressing them. The apparently frustrated juror was blocked from exiting the courtroom by a special constable before saying: “I am never coming back here!”

The case will return to court on Sept. 9, when Quebec’s Superior Court will set a schedule for several trials it is expected to hear in the coming months. By then, the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) will possibly decide whether it wants to proceed with a third trial.

“We will take the time to determine the position we will take ( before making our decision public),” Jean-pascal Boucher, spokesperson for the DPCP, wrote in an emailed statement. “For now it would be hazardous to comment ... or to go into the factual details of the case.”

In January, a Quebec Superior Court judge ordered OS4 Techno Inc., a company that was involved in the fraudulent scheme, to pay $2.5 million to the City of Montreal.

But the judge combined two lawsuits and also ordered Parent and several other parties to pay OS4 Techno Inc. $2.4 million. The written decision criticized the city’s administration for doing little, between 2006 and 2008, to address red flags raised while it was paying for services that were never rendered.