{WINNIPEG - The architect of a long-running scam to defraud the federal government of millions of dollars has been sentenced to three years in prison and must pay $1.8 million in restitution.
Perry Fontaine was sentenced Friday, nine months after he pleaded guilty to skimming taxpayer money that was supposed to be used to help addicts at the Virgina Fontaine Addictions Foundation, which Fontaine directed.
Between 1991 and 2000, court was told, Fontaine and two senior Health Department workers lined their own pockets, using some of the money to buy fancy cars, houses and exotic vacations.
"I find that Mr. Fontaine's crime is more serious than ... other cases because of Mr. Fontaine's control of the Centre, the length of time and complexity of Mr. Fontaine's machinations, the public brazenness of his fraud and the coverup which followed," Court of Queen's Bench Justice Perry Schulman wrote in his decision.
The scam first came to light in 2000, following a newspaper report of a Caribbean cruise taken by Fontaine, dozens of workers at the addictions centre, and Paul Cochrane, at the time the head of Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch.
The department ordered a forensic audit, which revealed that Cochrane and Patrick Nottingham, the then-regional director for Health Canada in Manitoba, accepted money and other benefits in exchange for funding the foundation.
The audit also revealed that money was being diverted to phoney consulting firms set up by Fontaine and Nottingham, which were billing the foundation for services that were never provided.
Cochrane and Nottingham pleaded guilty to fraud in 2005 and agreed to testify against Fontaine. Cochrane was given a one-year jail sentence and ordered to repay $211,000. Nottingham was given a conditional sentence of two years less a day and ordered to pay $1.14 million.
Fontaine was scheduled to stand trial last September, but pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery.
His crime was made more serious by his attempts to cover it up, the judge ruled.
"He participated in burning of documents of the centre. He instructed others to install a virus in the centre's computer to hide information from investigators. It required a very long and complicated investigation by the RCMP to unravel the fraud," Schulman wrote.
Fontaine's lawyer had argued for a shorter sentence of two years, saying Fontaine, 55, is in poor health, has expressed remorse, and was a childhood victim of physical and sexual abuse at a residential school.} http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090619/national/addictions_scandal
