Former construction entrepreneur Tony Accurso has had a fraud case against him stayed by the Crown because the state could not produce evidence within the timeline required by the Supreme Court’s Jordan standard.
With accusations including conspiracy, breach of trust and forgery, the case against Accurso, another entrepreneur, an accountant and two Canada Revenue Agency employees stemming from an RCMP investigation into corruption at the CRA was dropped just six months after the trial began in Quebec court.
Judge Mélanie Hébert ordered prosecutors to turn over all original documents that the government has had in its possession, which is estimated at some 800 boxes of materials ranging from thick detailed reports to crumpled post-it notes and receipts all by last month. The task to digitize and index the hundreds of thousands of documents seized 13 years ago within a reasonable timeline would have made compliance with the ruling impossible said prosecutors who instead abandoned the case. Why the prosecution had not done this earlier as required in normal procedures of discovery is still unanswered.
The 2016 Supreme Court Jordan ruling resulted in hundreds of court cases across Canada being dismissed over unreasonable delays. But questions are being raised about the nature of the Accurso indictment and the prosecution’s failure to produce documents over so many years.
With charges laid in 2012 and an inability to comply with the ruling in mid-2021, the prosecution said it had no choice but to drop the case against Accurso, Francesco Fiorino, Francesco Bruno, Antonio Girardi and Adriano Furgiuele.
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July 10, 2021 at 09:00PM
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Crown drops case against Accurso | City News | thesuburban.com - The Suburban Newspaper
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