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REGIONAL WRAP-UP A MonTh To FoRGET conviction of Luc Dumont, a recently disbarred lawyer from the area who was found guilty on two counts of homicide involontaire — manslaughter — in the death of a local prostitute. According to testimony presented during the trial, Dumont spent several hours alone in a room with Nadia Caron, who worked in a brothel in the area, two hours north of Quebec City, in August of 2005. Ca- ron later died of a cocaine overdose. In addition to being found guilty on July 24 on both counts related to her death, Dumont was also convicted of traffick- ing, for his having supplied the young woman with the deadly drug. He is expected to receive his sentence before year's end. Just three days after Dumont's con- viction, lawyers in the Saguenay area J uly was a rough month for the legal community in Quebec's Saguenay region. The first contretemps was the were stunned by the news that lo- cal assistant Crown prosecutor Jean- François Morency had been arraigned on eight serious criminal charges. The charges — including two for corrup- tion and two for obstruction of justice, which carry respective maximum sen- tences of 14 and 10 years — followed a two-year investigation by the Sûreté du Québec. "No one could believe it," says Claude Desbiens, bâtonnier of the bar association in the Lac-Saint-Jean/ Saguenay region and a litigation lawyer in Chicoutimi. "I've been telling people and the media here that, yes, this is a very serious matter, but they shouldn't lose confidence in our justice system. There are 23,000 lawyers across Que- bec and, like in every profession, we've got a few bad apples." According to Jean-François Tessier, a veteran federal Crown prosecutor who has been called in to try the case, the charges stem from two cases involving Morency and area businessman Pierre Deschênes, who is alleged to have paid the prosecutor to either drop or reduce pending criminal charges against him. Tessier laid the charges after spending three months poring over a 1,000-page report on the evidence against Morency compiled by police from electronic wire- taps and the work of an undercover of- ficer, known only as "agent d'infiltration AI508." While refusing to discuss details of the case and charges, Tessier says it is a rarity in the annals of Quebec justice. "It's been a long time that a Crown at- torney in Quebec has faced corruption charges," Tessier, 39, tells Canadian Lawyer. He says he was only able to find two similar cases in the post-Duplessis era in Quebec. In those cases — which in- volved Gilles Harris, in 1984, and Bernard Fournier, in 1978 — he says the Crowns Intellectual Property discreet and professional investigations Surveillance discreet videotaping detailed reporting Investigations interviews - enquiries statements 10 Offices Located in Ontario A Partner in Investigations Canada www.king-reed.com Southwestern Ontario: (800) 253-1666 Central Toronto: (877) 695-6575 Eastern Ontario: (800) 670-0407 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com SEPTEMBER 2008 13