Zampino grilled over 'mystery' faxes and hard drive at municipal corruption trial

Frank Zampino, the former head of Montreal's executive committee, was grilled Tuesday by a Crown prosecutor about faxes addressed to him that he says he never saw, and a hard drive seized from his house by police that he says was not his.

Zampino — second-in-command to former city mayor Gérald Tremblay from 2001 to 2008 — continued testifying at his trial on charges of fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust in connection with an alleged municipal bid-rigging scandal.

Several times Quebec Court Judge Silvie Kovacevich admonished Crown prosecutor Nicolas Ammerlaan to stop interrupting Zampino's answers as he tried to explain the mysterious faxes and hard drive.

"What was seized at my house was a hard drive that I had never seen. It's equipment I never purchased," Zampino testified.

Ammerlaan asked, "you're saying the black hard drive that was on a shelf in your home, you'd never seen that? Are you saying the police planted that?" 

Zampino replied, "no, that's not what I'm saying. But it was not a hard drive I purchased. I have no idea where that hard drive came from."

"It was not a piece of equipment that I had ever seen in my home," he said.

Zampino, 65, conceded that he was generally familiar with most of the material investigators eventually discovered on the hard drive, but he offered no other explanation as to how the drive might have ended up in his home office.

Faxes 'remain a mystery'

In that same office was a fax machine.

Last week, Zampino testified about several faxes sent to that fax number and to the number of a fax machine in his office — faxes he claims he never saw.

The faxes were sent by Bernard Trépanier, the former head of financing for Zampino's party, Union Montreal.

The prosecution alleges Zampino, with Trépanier's help, put in place a system allowing 13 engineering firms to share 34 public contracts with a total value of $160 million between 2004 and 2009.

In return, the engineering firms would allegedly make a donation of three per cent of the value of each contract to Union Montreal, as well as an initial donation — sort of like an entry fee to participate in the scheme — ranging from $50,000 to $200,000.

Trépanier died of cancer in 2018.

The faxes Zampino was asked about were all by Trépanier to Zampino's attention, sometimes with a note saying "as discussed" or "following our meeting."

They generally included the name of an engineering firm identified as having won a municipal contract, the amount of the contract and the names of firms that offered losing bids.

Zampino testified Friday he had never seen any of these faxes.

Ammerlaan asked him Tuesday how that was possible.

"To this very day it still remains a mystery to me. I can't explain where those faxes came from and why I've never seen them," Zampino replied.

Meeting in agenda 'never took place'

Zampino was asked if he considered Trépanier an intermediary between himself and the heads of engineering firms.

"He was not. I never allowed him or authorized him to use my name in any of those capacities," Zampino said

He was then asked about a meeting in June 2006 noted in his agenda with Trépanier, Bernard Poulin — head of the engineering firm Groupe SM — and another unnamed guest.

Zampino initially said he couldn't say for sure if this meeting occurred.

Ammerlaan asked "do you acknowledge that such a gathering between the three of you is totally inappropriate?"

Zampino replied, "it's not appropriate, but the meeting to my recollection never took place." 

He said that Trépanier often called his office and tried to arrange meetings with heads of engineering firms.

"He was an old-time political operator, and he would have wanted to demonstrate that he was close to political decision makers," Zampino said.

"It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks," he added.

Zampino continued to vehemently deny any knowledge of a municipal bid-rigging scheme.

"I never participated in any arrangement where there's an exchange of political donations for contracts with whomever," Zampino said.

"I never received, I never requested, I never facilitated any amount of monies in exchange for contracts," he said.

Key witness died during first trial

Four other people are also facing charges: former director of public works for the city, Robert Marcil, and the heads of three engineering firms, Kazimierz Olechnowicz, Poulin and Normand Brousseau.

This is the second trial for Zampino and his co-accused after he was arrested in 2017.

The judge in the first trial ordered a stay of proceedings after determining that wiretap evidence gathered by investigators — including recordings of Zampino and his co-accused talking with their lawyers — was unconstitutional.

That decision was appealed to the Quebec Court of Appeal, which concluded that even though the wiretap evidence was indeed unconstitutional, it was not enough to justify a stay of proceedings and that a new trial should be held without using the wiretap evidence.

That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which last year refused to hear the case, leading to this new trial which began in February.

Zampino testified Tuesday that he had hoped Trépanier might be able to shed light on the mysterious faxes during the first trial.

He said he knew Trépanier was in fragile health at the time, and that his legal team asked the Crown to skip a preliminary hearing in the case so that Trépanier's testimony might occur before his health worsened.

But it was too late. The Crown refused to wave the preliminary hearing and Trépanier died while the first trial was still underway, before he could testify.