By Judi McLeod
Friday, June 29, 2007
If there had been a reward for information leading to the arrest of Liberal scam artist and ad man Jean Lafleur, the citizens of Costa Rica would have earned it.
Eighteen long months before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) caught up with the free wheeling ad man, Costa Rican neighbours had pinpointed his location.
If authorities had taken action when residents of Escazu tipped off Canada Free Press (CFP) in November of 2005--one day after the first phase of the Gomery Report was released--the money trail never would have gone cold.
Lafleur was sentenced to 48 months in jail, on Wednesday, the harshest penalty to date against someone involved in the Canadian sponsorship scandal.
Because he is a first time offender, he will be eligible for some sort of parole in just seven months.
Quebec Court Judge Suzanne Coupal also ordered Lafleur to repay the whole of the $1.5-million he admitted to defrauding from federal sponorship contracts. Set up under a Prime Minister Jean Chretien-led Liberal government, the contracts were ostensibly created to help improve Ottawa's image in Quebec.
Police had searched the globe for the former ad man before he turned himself in after years on the lam, last April.
"Crown attorney Ann-Mary Beauchemin has asked for a sentence of 4 to 5 years and repayment of the entire sum of the 28 government contracts." (Globeandmail.com, June 27, 2007). "Defense lawyer Jean-Claude Hebert had suggested a 30-month sentence."
Lafleur went on the lam following his testimony at the Gomery inquiry, which probed the Liberal sponsorship scandal that ripped off Canadian taxpayers to the tune of millions of dollars.
Evidence shows that Lafleur once toadied up to top federal Liberals as his advertising firm signed up millions in government contracts. The Gomery inquiry heard that he took influential politicians on salmon fishing trips and courted heads of Crown corporations with champagne in a Montreal Canadiens corporate box.
The 66-year-old Lafleur was a target of broad public scorn after his 2005 testimony at the inquiry headed by Justice John Gomery. Lafleur claimed a bad memory to avoid questions about how millions of sponsorship dollars were blown by Ottawa in its ill-fated campaign to increase visibility in Quebec.
The judge said Lafleur preferred looking like "an imbecile" rather than tell the truth.
Lafleur pleaded guilty to 28 of 35 counts of fraud last April after turning himself in to authorities at a Montreal airport. But it wasn't until an international arrest warrant was issued against him that the mainstream media started reporting about his high life in the tropics.
Just as Costa Ricans had suggested, the crown presented evidence during pre-sentencing arguments suggesting that Lafleur had funneled his assets out of Canada.
Lafleur's cash rich account with CIBC Gundy held $3-million in 2002 but had dwindled to a mere $23,000 by 2005 because of a number of withdrawals, according to the testimony of RCMP fraud investigator, Cpl. Richard Sabourin.
Lafleur's mansion in Sutton, in Quebec's Eastern Townships, sold for $1.5-million in December of 2004. Just two months later, the RCMP's Integrated Proceeds of Crime Unit was advised by the Montreal branch of the Banque Nationale de Paris that a lawyer representing Lafleur wanted to transfer 1.5-million to the Bahamas. The bank refused to execute the transaction.
By 2006, Lafleur had left Costa Rica for Belize. The court heard that the manager of the Belize bank of San Pedro stopped a $9,960 transfer to Lafleur's account from a Toronto bank. As it turned out, the manager considered that the amount was too close to the $10,000 limit over which Lafleur would have had to declare the money's origin.
RCMP investigators found that Lafleur said on credit card applications in Belize that he earned $20,000 a year in the Central American country, had $1.6 million in Canadian funds and $140,000 in U.S. funds as of August 2006.
While in Belize, Lafleur bought a $17,000 motorboat and rented an ocean-view apartment for $1,100 (U.S.) a month while he kept an empty flat in Montreal at $1,425 (Canadian) a month.
Lafleur's travels included Brazil, Costa Rica, France and Mexico.
But it was the loud living he did in Costa Rica that ended blowing his cover. Costa Ricans who called CFP couldn't believe that the man who only one month ago had testified before the Gomery Inquiry was making a reputation as their country's biggest and rudest "party boy".
It was the Costa Ricans who tracked down information indicating that on-the-lam Lafleur was living it up in Belize.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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