Ex-manager sentenced to 39 months prison in hospital corruption case
MONTREAL — A former hospital executive who pocketed a $10-million bribe in return for helping engineering giant SNC-Lavalin win a Montreal hospital-building contract was sentenced Monday to 39 months in prison.
Quebec court Judge Claude Leblond sentenced Yanai Elbaz in a case that has been described by Quebec authorities as the largest corruption fraud case in Canadian history.
Elbaz and Arthur Porter, the former CEO of Montreal’s English-language superhospital received a total of $22.5 million to rig the bidding process to favour SNC-Lavalin, an agreed statement of facts in the case said. Porter died a fugitive in Panamanian custody in 2015 without ever facing trial.
Leblond accepted a joint recommendation from the defence and Crown that followed Elbaz’s Nov. 26 guilty plea. “The court considers the common suggestion proposed is an adequate sentence in the circumstances,” Leblond said. “It is not contrary to the public order.”