Wright pressured MP Adler to settle lawsuit
Conservative MP Mark Adler settled a legal dispute with convicted money launderer Nathan Jacobson after Nigel Wright, then Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, put pressure on Adler to settle his debt, Postmedia News has learned.
Adler paid Jacobson an undisclosed sum in late 2012 or early 2013 to settle the lawsuit.
He has declined to say how much he paid Jacobson. The terms of the out-of-court settlement are confidential.
Wright pressured Adler to make the payment because he was uncomfortable with a caucus member having an unresolved dispute with Jacobson, sources say.
Jacobson filed the suit in October 2011, claiming he loaned Adler more than $100,000 for Adler to establish an American offshoot of his business, the Economic Club of Canada.
In a statement of defence filed in January 2012, Adler acknowledged receiving $114,962 from Jacobson, but said the money was not a loan but a gift given to Adler as “a friendly gesture,” and asked the court to dismiss the suit.
At the time that Jacobson transferred money to Adler, he was moving in Canada’s highest business, political and philanthropic circles.
He was friendly with Conservative cabinet ministers Jason Kenney and John Baird, and was photographed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
For years, though, he had kept a secret from his well-connected friends: in 2008 he pleaded guilty in a San Diego courtroom to money laundering as part of Affpower, an offshore pharmacy that provided drugs to people without proper prescriptions. He agreed to forfeit $4.5 million as part of his plea agreement.
A judge sealed the agreement while Jacobson secretly worked to help American authorities with their investigation, and he continued to travel the world pursuing his business interests and forging relationships with senior Canadian Conservatives.
In July 2012, though, when it was time for him to return to San Diego for sentencing — he was expected to get more than two years in federal custody — Jacobson didn’t show up as he had agreed to do, becoming a fugitive from U.S. justice before his eventual arrest in October.
A week after Jacobson’s arrest, on Nov. 2, Wright, then the chief of staff to the prime minister, called Adler at his Toronto constituency office and pressured him to settle the legal dispute.
Neither Adler nor Howard Wolch, the Toronto lawyer who handled the settlement for Jacobson, would discuss details of the settlement.
Wright, who recently left Ottawa to work in London, England, declined to comment, as did the PMO.