The Contrecoeur fraud trial is expected to hear opening arguments and from its first witnesses at the Montreal courthouse as of Friday — a year after the trial began.
Quebec Court judge Yvan Poulin, who is presiding over the case, is to render a decision on a defence motion for disclosure of evidence concerning wiretaps involving one of the accused and his lawyers first thing on Friday.
Once the judge pronounces his ruling on the 24th — and, as of Thursday, last — motion to be filed since the trial began on Feb. 8, 2016, the case is supposed to move on to opening arguments and the first witnesses. That is, unless any more motions are filed.
The motions, most of them filed by the defence to exclude certain evidence, seek further evidence from the Crown or to stay the proceedings, and the illness of one of the accused set off legal wrangling that occupied the court’s time over the past year.
The accused include Frank Zampino, who was the No. 2 politician at Montreal city hall from 2002 to 2008, former construction magnate Paolo Catania and four former executives of Construction Frank Catania et Associés Inc. They were arrested in May 2012 on conspiracy and fraud charges relating to the 2007 sale of city-owned land known as Faubourg Contrecoeur for residential development.
The first witnesses in the trial are expected to be police officers.
Trial dates have been set through June.
The Crown said last year it had 50 non-police witnesses to call as well, including the former mayor of Montreal, Gérald Tremblay.
The city’s real-estate agency sold the Contrecoeur land to Construction Frank Catania et Associés for $4.4 million, while the land’s municipal assessment was $31 million.
The construction company is also charged.
Bernard Trépanier, the former director of fundraising for the once-ruling Union Montreal party, was ordered a separate trial last year after his cancer treatments forced his absence from court.
