Former SNC-Lavalin CEO pleads guilty to superhospital corruption charges

Guilty plea from former SNC-Lavalin CEO The last criminal case related to the building of the hospital at the Glen came to a sudden end when Pierre Duhaime entered his plea.

Former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime pleaded guilty to breach for his role in the MUHC superhospital bribery scandal on Friday.

As part of the plea deal, Duhaime will not serve any jail time, but will have to spend 20 months serving the community. His trial was to have started next week.

Before entering his plea, Duhaime was the last outstanding case among those charged in connection with corruption surrounding the construction of the $1.3 billion Glen superhospital.

Duhaime left SNC-Lavalin in March 2012 after an independent review found that he had approved $56-million in payments to undisclosed agents.

In December, MUHC official Yanai Elbaz was sentenced to 39 months in prison for accepting the $10 million bribe. He pleaded guilty to influence peddling, breach of trust and money laundering.

In an agreed statement of facts presented in court in Elbaz's case, the former MUHC official admitted to giving privileged information to SNC-Lavalin to help its submission for the contract to build a massive hospital complex in west-end Montreal.

Elbaz also admitted to denigrating SNC's competitors in front of the hospital's selection committee.

Elbaz and Arthur Porter, the former CEO of the MUHC who died a fugitive in Panamanian custody in 2015, received a total of $22.5 million to rig the bidding process to favour SNC-Lavalin, the statement of facts said.

Porter created a shell company that received the $22.5 million from the engineering firm. Elbaz then created his own shell company and received his share of the cash, the document said. Elbaz admitted that all the money in the shell companies was proceeds of crime.

Police raided the MUHC's offices in September 2012. The following February, Quebec's anti-corruption unit issued warrants for the arrests of Duhaime, Ben Aissa, Elbaz and Porter. Duhaime had initially faced charges of fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and using forged documents.

Porter's wife, Pamela, was arrested later and in 2014 pleaded guilty to laundering the proceeds of crime.

- With files from The Canadian Press