Michael Applebaum verdict Jan 26: what to expect

 

Applebaum, Provost,  Tremblay

Michael Applebaum will finally learn his fate on January 26 after Justice Louise Provost renders her verdict on 14 charges of corruption.
   Applebaum served as CDN/NDG borough borough mayor for a decade and had been interim Montreal mayor for seven months when arrested midway through 2013.
   His prosecution has taken almost four years to complete.
   Applebaum did not testify and was represented by his lawyer Pierre Teasdale.
   Prosecutor Nathalie Kleber attempted to convince the judge that Applebaum was guilty of taking $60,000 in bribes between 2006 and 2011.
   Applebaum's former aide Hugo Tremblay took the bribes.
   Tremblay avoided charges by testifying as a witness against Applebaum.
   Applebaum's lawyer described Tremblay as being perpetually in debt and frequently got contractors to give him hockey and concert tickets and managed to find ways to get kickbacks for himself.
   Applebaum's personal activities involved pushing people to attend pricey party fundraisers and to pay in cash, which he did not deny.
   Tremblay told the court that he thought up a plan to squeeze Sogep's Pierre Laporte for $25,000 in exchange for a maintenance contract at a sports facility in 2010.
   The company said they assumed the money would go to Applebaum but Applebaum had no contact with them about it.
   Tremblay also collected $30,000 from developers Anthony Keeler and Robert Stein.
   Tremblay claimed he kept $10,000 for himself and gave the rest to Applebaum.
   Applebaum, of course, denied all knowledge of such affairs.
   Prosecutors were unable to seize any actual cash from Applebaum and could not find anything unusual in his banking records.
   Prosecutors gave Tremblay a concealed recording device, a wire, in an attempt to get Applebaum to say something that might seem incriminating.
   Applebaum never said anything about bribes, although he made a remark about prosecutors being unable to pursue a bribery case if they were unable to locate cash as evidence.
   Cases that rely on informants as main witnesses often fail because those witnesses have committed crimes and have a vested interested in blaming someone else in order to avoid punishment.
  The businessmen who paid the bribes could have been charged with bribery.
  They were not subject to polygraph tests, as is usually the case, nor were they required to sign admissions of guilty, as Teasdale noted.
  Observers noted that there is a solid possibility that Applebaum will be found not guilty of all 14 charges.
   If that happens, it will raise questions as to why Applebaum was arrested in light of such underwhelming evidence and forced to wait three and a half years before being cleared.
   Leger Marketing did a poll in Nov. 2012 that showed Applebaum had an approval rating of 69 percent among non-francophones, which made his a serious possible mayoral candidate.
   Any idea he had of running for mayor were quashed after his arrest.
   He could conceivably make a serious bid for mayor of Montreal later this fall if exonerated.
   One might wonder whether those who ordered Applebam's arrest and prosecution might have been entirely impartial about Montreal city politics.
   Potential mayoral candidates who find themselves suddenly arrested is not an unprecedented occurrence in Montreal as Coolopolis has noted.