The judge presiding over the Contrecoeur fraud trial has granted the Crown a delay to hand over more material to the defence relating to police wiretaps that intercepted conversations between some of the accused and their lawyers.
However, Quebec Court Judge Yvan Poulin said on Thursday that he also insists both sides speed things up to deal with a motion for disclosure of evidence that’s still before the court and that concerns the wiretap.
Both sides are due back in court on Monday.
The trial of Frank Zampino, the former No. 2 politician at Montreal city hall, former construction magnate Paolo Catania and four former executives of Catania’s construction firm in the 2007 sale of city-owned land known as Faubourg Contrecoeur, began a year ago this week. But to date, no witnesses and no evidence have been presented while the court has dealt with a series of motions, most of them filed by the defence.
However, Poulin made a point to say on Thursday that it was the Crown’s actions that prompted the “incident” that has now occupied over two weeks of the court’s time, a reference to the 24th and latest defence motion.
“At the dawn of hearing the first witness” in late January, Poulin said, the prosecution suddenly decided to reveal to the defence that the provincial police had intercepted conversations in 2015 between some of the accused in the Contrecoeur case and their lawyers while conducting a wiretap in a separate investigation into allegations of municipal corruption.
The prosecution had been aware of the intercepted lawyer-client conversations since late December.
The prosecution, however, offered to voluntarily give the defence audiotapes and other material relating to the intercepted conversations, a move that Poulin said on Thursday was “a wise decision.”
Prosecutor Pascal Lescarbeau said the Crown is prepared to move ahead with the trial and start hearing evidence from witnesses. If the defence files another motion, he said, it can be debated after the evidence is presented.
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