{"id":51105,"date":"2015-06-02T00:31:27","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T16:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=51105"},"modified":"2015-06-02T02:37:59","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T18:37:59","slug":"corruption-related-preliminary-hearing-begins-for-ex-montreal-mayor-applebaum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/06\/02\/corruption-related-preliminary-hearing-begins-for-ex-montreal-mayor-applebaum\/","title":{"rendered":"Corruption related preliminary hearing begins for ex Montreal mayor Applebaum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Former<\/a>
Former Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum (Wikipedia photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONTREAL — Former interim Montreal mayor Michael Applebaum appeared in court on Monday as his preliminary hearing began on corruption-related charges.<\/p>\n

A publication ban was ordered on the evidence being heard before Quebec court Judge Yvan Poulin as Applebaum listened intently and jotted down notes.<\/p>\n

He was arrested and charged about two years ago with 14 counts including fraud, corruption, conspiracy and breach of trust involving two real-estate projects in the local district he represented from 2002 until 2012.<\/p>\n

Applebaum served as interim Montreal mayor for roughly seven months, beginning in late 2012, after Gerald Tremblay stepped down.<\/p>\n

He was the first anglophone mayor of the city in 100 years and his time in office ended one day after his arrest by Quebec’s anti-corruption unit in June 2013.<\/p>\n

Applebaum, a longtime city councillor and borough mayor before occupying the city’s most powerful elected seat, has maintained his innocence and vowed to fight the charges.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Pierre Teasdale, has said his client wants the case heard as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

The accusations relate to his time as borough mayor of Notre-Dame-de-Grace\/Cote-des-Neiges, the city’s most populous district.<\/p>\n

The first witness to take the stand for the Crown was Hugo Tremblay, a former political attache to Applebaum.<\/p>\n

At least four other witnesses are expected to follow over the next week and perhaps longer if needed.<\/p>\n

Evidence being heard will permit a judge to determine if there is sufficient reason to order Applebaum to stand trial.<\/p>\n

The defence has said it won’t contest a committal to trial and has opted for a jury trial.<\/p>\n

Two others arrested with Applebaum have since pleaded guilty to similar charges.<\/p>\n

Saulie Zajdel and Jean-Yves Bisson pleaded guilty late last month to some of the charges they were facing.<\/p>\n

Both received suspended sentences, probation, community service and were required to make a donation to community groups.<\/p>\n

Zajdel, a longtime municipal politician himself, also dabbled in federal politics as the Tory candidate in the Montreal riding of Mount Royal in 2011, losing to Liberal Irwin Cotler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL — Former interim Montreal mayor Michael Applebaum appeared in court on Monday as his preliminary hearing began on corruption-related …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":51119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-politics","mauthors-sidhartha-banerjee","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}