Construction magnate's Canada Revenue Agency bribery trial suspended
A trial involving allegations that construction magnate Antonio “Tony” Accurso bribed Canada Revenue Agency auditors to reduce reported income of his companies was suspended Thursday after a Quebec Court judge ordered the Crown to turn over more evidence to defence lawyers.
Judge Mélanie Hébert ordered the prosecution to turn over “all of the documents seized by (Canada Revenue Agency) during the search warrants executed in 2008 and 2009 within the framework of Project Legaux,” unless they have no pertinence to the case.
She also ordered that a request to have a stay of proceedings placed on the charges Accurso and four other men face in the trial be suspended until the matter is dealt with.
Her decision details how defence lawyers, including Marc Labelle, who represents Accurso, have made pretrial requests to have all evidence gathered in the probe disclosed to them, as required by law.
It also provides a complicated description of how CRA shared evidence, in the form of original documents, with Revenue Quebec several years ago and the many steps taken to get the evidence back before the current trial.
Despite a lot of back and forth between the two government agencies, a CRA investigator ultimately determined that 802 boxes of documents, “the major part in the framework of Project Legaux, were not disclosed to the defence. No one had asked (the investigator) to go and see the 802 boxes held by Revenue Quebec.”
Hébert notes the evidence reveals that Revenue Quebec has held some of the original documents since 2011, or before the charges in the current trial were filed against the accused.
The Crown argues that the documents held by Revenue Quebec are not pertinent to the case.
Hébert queried: “How (can the Crown) claim that a document isn't pertinent if it hasn't seen it? ”
Hébert noted, however, there appears to be substance in the Crown's argument the documents were part of two different investigations and those held by Revenue Quebec are not pertinent to the current trial.
The judge determined she does not have enough information yet to decide whether the documents that were not turned over to the defence merit placing a stay of proceedings on the charges.
“The court knows little of the nature of the documents that were not disclosed and, consequently, of the information contained in them. The court therefore does not have sufficient information on the documents to decide whether the actions of the (Crown) have jeopardized the fairness of the trial or the integrity of the judicial process or to decide if reparations other than a stay of proceedings are likely to correct the situation,” Hébert wrote.
The accused — Accurso, Laval businessman Francesco Bruno, accountant Francesco Fiorino, and former CRA auditors Adriano Furgiuele and Antonio Girardi — are charged with fraud, fabricating false documents, breach of trust and conspiracy.
Accurso is alleged to have paid Furgiuele and Girardi more than $700,000 in bribes to help him in the alleged scheme to reduce the reported incomes of his companies.