Advertisement 1

Del Mastro's lawyer calls key Crown witness a liar

Dean Del Mastro’s lawyer denounced the Crown’s star witness as a liar motivated by malice as the defence made its closing arguments in the MP’s trial on Tuesday.

Article content

PETERBOROUGH — Dean Del Mastro’s lawyer denounced the Crown’s star witness as a liar motivated by malice as the defence made its closing arguments in the MP’s trial on Tuesday.

Del Mastro, formerly the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, faces as long as a year in jail if he is convicted of violating the Elections Act by paying for voter-identification calls that put him over the spending limit in 2008.

Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content

Del Mastro and Richard McCarthy, his official agent in the election, each face three charges of exceeding the $92,566.79 spending limit and filing a false return. Del Mastro is also charged with exceeding his donation limit, because he allegedly paid for the calls with a $21,000 personal cheque.

Article content

The Crown’s case hinges on evidence from Frank Hall, CEO of Holinshed Research Group, the now-defunct company that conducted the calls. Del Mastro’s lawyer, Jeff Ayotte, said Tuesday that Hall lied because he “had an axe to grind with Dean” related to the collapse of Holinshed.

In July, Hall testified that he received a phone call from a panicky Del Mastro before the 2008 campaign started.

Hall said that Del Mastro hired Holinshed to make voter-identification calls for the campaign, and produced payroll and call-log records to show that his company did the work, and emails that show Del Mastro inquiring about the progress.

Del Mastro has testified that he did pay Holinshed $21,000, but the money was for a customized software program, not election calls.

On Tuesday, Ayotte accused Hall of faking the Del Mastro emails, and said Judge Lisa Cameron should believe his client, not Hall.

Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content

Hall’s testimony was “evasive, self-serving, not capable of belief,” while Del Mastro’s story was “far more believable. Ultimately, you are going to be forced to make some credibility findings,” he told the judge.

The key emails were extracted from Hall’s computer by RCMP computer forensic experts, but Hall would only let the Mounties have emails relevant to the case, refusing to let them do a full forensic examination of his computer.

Ayotte attacked Elections Canada for allowing Hall to set the terms of the search.

“There’s a lot of questions that we have about this investigation,” he said.

Elections Canada didn’t interview Holinshed’s callers, subpoena phone records or track down recipients of the calls who donated to Del Mastro’s campaign, which Ayotte said posed problems for the defence.

Ayotte said Hall lied when he told Elections Canada that clients drew his attention to alleged inaccuracies in Del Mastro’s election return, and said Hall waited to go to the agency until the 2011 election because he wanted to embarrass Del Mastro.

“The question for the court is, is a person who is capable of doing all those things capable of changing emails?” said Ayotte.

Advertisement 4
Story continues below
Article content

Del Mastro, on the other hand, offered credible evidence, Ayotte said.

In the witness box, Del Mastro denied backdating the $21,000 cheque to hide the payment, although bank records show other cheques in the series were dated during the campaign.

“My submission is the timing of the cheque is largely irrelevant,” said Ayotte, although he said Del Mastro’s story about the cheque was reasonable.

Del Mastro testified that he was in the habit of taking cheques from his wife’s chequebook, keeping them in his wallet and using them when needed.

“In any event, it doesn’t matter, unless it goes to his credibility,” Ayotte said.

Ayotte reviewed records that appear to show Holinshed did $21,000 worth of election calls for the campaign, arguing that the commercial value of the calls could be as low as $2,221, which would put them under the limit.

And he said that election spending only counts toward the limit if it “directly promotes” the candidate, arguing that the Crown had failed to show the campaign made use of the data Holinshed gathered.

Dave McFadden, the lawyer for McCarthy, made his closing arguments after Ayotte, reiterating many of the same points.

As well as the maximum year in jail and $1,000 fine each man could face if convicted, Del Mastro would also be barred from running for office for five years.

Prosecutor Tom Lemon will lay out the Crown’s case against Del Mastro on Thursday, after which the defence lawyers will have the opportunity to reply.

smaher@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/stphnmaher

Article content
Comments
You must be logged in to join the discussion or read more comments.
Join the Conversation

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

Latest National Stories
    This Week in Flyers