By Les Perreaux
MONTREAL (CP) - Jean Lafleur, a fraudster with the taste for the sunny high life, admitted in court Friday that he duped the federal government out of $1.5 million in the sponsorship program.
The Montreal advertising executive who spent recent years in warm Caribbean climates made a surprise guilty plea to 28 counts of fraud as his bail hearing was set to begin.
He was sent back to jail to await a sentencing hearing June 1.
"He could definitely face a jail term," said Crown attorney Ann-Mary Beauchemin. "Obviously I'll be asking for a jail term."
In a couple of quiet resort towns in Costa Rica and Belize, Lafleur was well known over the past couple years for his taste in fine wine and his love of noisy late night carousing.
Before he moved to the sunny south, Lafleur became known in Canada as the ad man who got rich off the sponsorship program but could remember little about how it happened when he testified at Justice John Gomery's inquiry.
Lafleur's brief court appearance Friday where he dropped the bombshell of a sudden guilty plea was more lucid.
"We've examined the charges together, you know the substance of the accusations, how do you plead?" Lafleur's lawyer, Jean-Claude Hebert asked in court.
"Guilty," said Lafleur in French, standing tall in a grey suit and red tie.
The plea followed a morning of backroom negotiations that delayed Lafleur's appearance.
The Crown dropped seven charges that involved about $10,000. But Beauchemin said there will be no deal with the defence on the length of Lafleur's sentence.
Lafleur's advertising company made some $65 million from government business from 1995 to 2003, during which he and several family members collected nearly $12 million in salaries and bonuses.
Hebert, Lafleur's lawyer, said he and the Crown are putting the finishing touches on an agreed statement of facts. But many of Lafleur's shady dealings were uncovered during the Gomery commission into the sponsorship program.
In his final report, Gomery described how Lafleur charged hefty commissions for "nothing more than opening a file." In many instances, Lafleur billed hours of work on projects where he barely lifted a finger, Gomery said.
In one example, Lafleur's company sent invoices that were "false, misleading and excessive" to the RCMP for a ball celebrating its 125th anniversary.
Lafleur billed about $500,000 for work that amounted to picking a location and setting up a seating arrangement. Lafleur pleaded guilty to $109,000 in fraud on the contract.
Gomery was galled by Lafleur's lapses in memory, finding that Lafleur "wished to appear slow-witted rather than give truthful answers."
Gomery said Lafleur cultivated Liberal party contacts that "contributed to what may be described as a financial bonanza for Jean Lafleur and his family."
Both the RCMP and the Quebec provincial police have ongoing investigations into the sponsorship scandal.
Gomery described social events where Lafleur entertained Chuck Guite, the federal bureaucrat who ran the program, along with key Liberal advisers like Jean Carle and Jean Pelletier and Quebec MPs like Alfonso Gagliano, Denis Coderre and Martin Cauchon.
"There was . . .. a sort of culture of entitlement according to which persons enjoying Mr. Lafleur's largesse apparently did not feel that there was anything wrong in being entertained by someone who was receiving and hoping to continue to receive government contracts," Gomery wrote.
The sponsorship program was designed to raise the profile of the federal government in Quebec after the narrow win by federalists in the 1995 sovereignty referendum.
Lafleur is the fifth person to be charged in the sponsorship affair and recently turned himself over to authorities after spending time in Belize.
Lafleur's neighbours at his Costa Rican condo complained bitterly about his noisy, partying lifestyle. He was quieter in Belize, where people were more likely to note his taste for good food and drink.
Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press