Longtime ex-Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt pleads guilty to fraud charges
LAVAL, Que. — Gilles Vaillancourt, once one of Quebec’s most influential municipal politicians, was sent to prison Thursday for his role in a scheme that defrauded public coffers of millions of dollars.
The former longtime mayor of Laval, Quebec’s third-largest municipality, pleaded guilty to three charges — conspiracy, fraud and breach of trust — and was incarcerated after defence and Crown lawyers agreed to a six-year prison term.
Under a joint Crown-defence agreement, Vaillancourt, 75, must reimburse about $7 million, mostly from Swiss bank accounts, as well as hand over his $1-million condominium to the city he headed for 23 years.
Crown prosecutor Richard Rougeau estimated the fraud totalled several dozen million dollars between 1996 and 2010.