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Mike Duffy’s old friend, Gerald Donohue, dispensed money to whomever the senator told him to, often to people he’d never met and for services he wasn’t sure about, Donohue testified at Duffy’s criminal trial Monday.
“I just followed instructions, made payments where they were required,” Donohue said under questioning from Crown prosecutor Mark Holmes.
Those payments amounted to more than $40,000, Donohue testified. And for some of them, Duffy is now on trial for fraud, facing allegations that he used Donohue to operate a slush fund to pay bills that the Senate would not consider legitimate expenses for Duffy’s senatorial work. They represent only a few of the 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery the former broadcaster and onetime Conservative star faces.
Donohue, who befriended Duffy when they both worked at CTV, testified he sent Duffy’s unpaid volunteer, Ashley Cain, a cheque for $500 on the senator’s instructions. What did she do? Holmes asked him.
“She’s one of the other ladies I understand was down around the Hill. I don’t know whether she worked in Sen. Duffy’s office or what she did,” Donohue said. The trial has previously heard that unpaid volunteers are, by definition, unpaid. There’s no legitimate mechanism for a senator to give one money.
What about more than $10,000 for a personal trainer? The trainer, Mike Croskery, has testified he talked with Duffy about aging while Duffy puffed away on an exercise bike.
“Never met the man. Wouldn’t know if I fell over him,” Donohue said.
Duffy told him to pay and he paid – people who wrote speeches, people who did Web design work, a bill from the parliamentary boutique.
The trouble here for Duffy is that his lawyer, Donald Bayne, has advanced a line in cross-examinations that Donohue was a general consultant who just subcontracted specific jobs. According to Donohue’s testimony, it was Duffy who did practically all the hiring – Donohue just did the paying, out of funds Duffy provided through big contracts he arranged for Donohue’s family companies. Typically, the money came in advance.
But sometimes Donohue’s Duffy fund ran out.
“That’s when I would beat up on Sen. Duffy and say ‘I need my money,’ ” Donohue testified. “Whenever we got behind, I would raise the issue with him, not in an angry way, but say, ‘Is there some way we can get them to pay on a more timely basis?’ And he’d say, ‘I’ll look into it.’ ”
Ultimately, Duffy arranged monthly payments of $2,000, to make sure Donohue’s fund stayed topped up, he testified.
Donohue family companies – which actually got the Senate contracts and sent the cheques Donohue signed, though he wasn’t an employee or a cheque-signing officer – kept about $20,000. Aside from acting as a clearinghouse for Duffy’s expenses, Donohue testified he would talk about current affairs with his friend, sometimes sit through speeches Duffy would read him to check for length, and researched Canada’s aging population for some kind of policy project that never turned into anything, mainly by looking things up on the Internet.
“I was never worried about whether he was using the work,” Donohue testified. “He kept calling, so I assumed I was doing something of value to him.”
Donohue’s testimony has been delayed repeatedly by his poor health. He’s testifying by video link from his home in Carp, and only for a couple of hours at a time. He’s all but housebound now, thanks to heart failure (he’d been too ill to work for years before he started working for Duffy), diabetes and the onset of kidney failure, which hospitalized him right as Duffy’s trial began back in April. He takes numerous medications and his memory fails him sometimes, he said.
“There’s been a lot of changes to my medication because of my kidneys,” he testified, as Bayne began cross-examining him. “The kidney guy is trying to keep the heart guy from killing me or something like that.”
With the Crown down to the very end of its case, and all but out of witnesses to call, the trial will not sit Tuesday. It’s to resume Wednesday with testimony from Liberal Sen. George Furey, who sat on the Senate committee contending with senators’ problematic expense claims. Donohue is to return on Thursday.
dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
“I just followed instructions, made payments where they were required,” Donohue said under questioning from Crown prosecutor Mark Holmes.
Those payments amounted to more than $40,000, Donohue testified. And for some of them, Duffy is now on trial for fraud, facing allegations that he used Donohue to operate a slush fund to pay bills that the Senate would not consider legitimate expenses for Duffy’s senatorial work. They represent only a few of the 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery the former broadcaster and onetime Conservative star faces.
Donohue, who befriended Duffy when they both worked at CTV, testified he sent Duffy’s unpaid volunteer, Ashley Cain, a cheque for $500 on the senator’s instructions. What did she do? Holmes asked him.
“She’s one of the other ladies I understand was down around the Hill. I don’t know whether she worked in Sen. Duffy’s office or what she did,” Donohue said. The trial has previously heard that unpaid volunteers are, by definition, unpaid. There’s no legitimate mechanism for a senator to give one money.
What about more than $10,000 for a personal trainer? The trainer, Mike Croskery, has testified he talked with Duffy about aging while Duffy puffed away on an exercise bike.
“Never met the man. Wouldn’t know if I fell over him,” Donohue said.
Duffy told him to pay and he paid – people who wrote speeches, people who did Web design work, a bill from the parliamentary boutique.
The trouble here for Duffy is that his lawyer, Donald Bayne, has advanced a line in cross-examinations that Donohue was a general consultant who just subcontracted specific jobs. According to Donohue’s testimony, it was Duffy who did practically all the hiring – Donohue just did the paying, out of funds Duffy provided through big contracts he arranged for Donohue’s family companies. Typically, the money came in advance.
But sometimes Donohue’s Duffy fund ran out.
“That’s when I would beat up on Sen. Duffy and say ‘I need my money,’ ” Donohue testified. “Whenever we got behind, I would raise the issue with him, not in an angry way, but say, ‘Is there some way we can get them to pay on a more timely basis?’ And he’d say, ‘I’ll look into it.’ ”
Ultimately, Duffy arranged monthly payments of $2,000, to make sure Donohue’s fund stayed topped up, he testified.
Donohue family companies – which actually got the Senate contracts and sent the cheques Donohue signed, though he wasn’t an employee or a cheque-signing officer – kept about $20,000. Aside from acting as a clearinghouse for Duffy’s expenses, Donohue testified he would talk about current affairs with his friend, sometimes sit through speeches Duffy would read him to check for length, and researched Canada’s aging population for some kind of policy project that never turned into anything, mainly by looking things up on the Internet.
“I was never worried about whether he was using the work,” Donohue testified. “He kept calling, so I assumed I was doing something of value to him.”
Donohue’s testimony has been delayed repeatedly by his poor health. He’s testifying by video link from his home in Carp, and only for a couple of hours at a time. He’s all but housebound now, thanks to heart failure (he’d been too ill to work for years before he started working for Duffy), diabetes and the onset of kidney failure, which hospitalized him right as Duffy’s trial began back in April. He takes numerous medications and his memory fails him sometimes, he said.
“There’s been a lot of changes to my medication because of my kidneys,” he testified, as Bayne began cross-examining him. “The kidney guy is trying to keep the heart guy from killing me or something like that.”
With the Crown down to the very end of its case, and all but out of witnesses to call, the trial will not sit Tuesday. It’s to resume Wednesday with testimony from Liberal Sen. George Furey, who sat on the Senate committee contending with senators’ problematic expense claims. Donohue is to return on Thursday.
dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
