Former longtime Montreal city councillor Saulie Zajdel was handed a suspended sentence of 18 months and probation after pleading guilty to charges of corruption and breach of trust involving real estate deals while he was in office.
He was also ordered to perform 240 hours of community service and donate $10,000 to charity.
Zajdel pleaded guilty May 26 to two of the five charges brought against him following his arrest in June 2013. The other three charges, which included fraud, were stayed.
Zajdel, 59, who was a city councillor from 1986 to 2009, ran unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in Mount Royal in the 2011 federal election.
The first Chassidic Jew elected to public office in Quebec, Zajdel, a Lubavitcher, was also at different times executive director of the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation and of B’nai Brith Canada, Quebec Region.
Zajdel’s lawyer Jeffrey Boro said his client decided to plead guilty to some charges in order to “turn the page, close that part of his life and move on…notwithstanding the fact we had a good case to plead in court…”
According to court documents, while representing the Côte des Neiges-Notre Dame de Grâce (CDN-NDG) borough in December 2007, Zajdel demanded a bribe of $10,000-$15,000 from developer Robert Stein for voting in favour of a borough motion granting him a permit to demolish a building he owned. Stein gave Zajdel the money in the spring of 2008 after Zajdel insisted on other occasions that he be paid.
Stein denied he had made any prior arrangement with Zajdel before the vote by the borough’s demolition committee.
Zajdel was arrested and charged at the same time as then interim Montreal mayor Michael Applebaum, also a CDN-NDG councillor, and former CDN-NDG director of permits and inspections Jean-Yves Bisson. A total of 23 charges were brought against the three men.
On May 22, Bisson pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from Stein and another developer, Anthony Keeler. He was also given an 18-month suspended sentence, and ordered to perform 240 hours of community service and give $13,000 to charity.
Applebaum’s preliminary hearing on 14 charges of fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust and corruption allegedly involving the issuing of permits and zoning changes is scheduled to begin June 1.
