Chris Lowrey
PONTIAC May 9, 2018
The $170,000 fraud that was committed against the MRC represents nearly 60 per cent of the total amount of money owed to the MRC from municipal fines.
More than $170,000 was stolen from the total amount of $284,463.09 owed to the MRC for municipal fines during the time the fraud took place.
In a press release issued by the MRC in March, it said that an employee from RPGL Avocats had defrauded the MRC of $170,000 over a period of time that ranged from January of 2012 until August of 2017.
The accused is Fort Coulonge native Colette Morrissette, 52, who was charged in March with fraud, forgery, using forged documents and identity fraud.
RPGL has a partnership with the MRC to process the MRC’s municipal fines.
The amount defrauded was taken from the RPGL fund for municipal fines.
When a resident is caught speeding or receives a noise complaint, the Sûreté du Quebec hands out the ticket, since the municipalities in the Pontiac don’t have bylaw officers.
The person who was issued the ticket then has 30 days to plead guilty or not guilty.
If they pay the fine in the first 30 days, they would go to RPGL and pay the fine on location. After the first 30 days, RPGL opens a file with the local courthouse.
If the person who was issued a ticket does not plead either way, a hearing by default is held where the evidence is presented to a judge. The judge then determines if the person is guilty and declares whether they have to pay the fine.
At this point, RPGL sends the file to the Quebec government, which has more levers at its disposal to enforce payment – like suspending a person’s driver’s license.
The payments received for fines are sent to the MRC every three months by RPGL and the total amount at the end of the year is redistributed to the 18 municipalities.
The reason the fraud wasn’t noticed by MRC staff is because Morrissette allegedly forged signatures and falsified the amount of money collected.
RPGL partner Roger Paradis said that the firm had no reason not to trust Morrissette. He said she had been working at RPGL since 2001.
“We had all the confidence in her, but she falsified the reports,” Paradis said on May 7. “She imitated my signature.”
In the aftermath, RPGL had to pay the $170,000 back out of the firm’s own pocket.
Paradis said that the revelation about the fraud floored him because he had placed so much trust in the alleged fraudster.
“I never had a doubt, it was a total surprise,” Paradis said.
Paradis said that the $170,000 repayment was especially painful since the firm didn’t have insurance.
“I was expecting to retire but I’m still working,” Paradis said. “It’s catastrophic for us, we never expected that kind of news.”
For its part, the MRC is re-evaluating its fine payment options. The fraud was discovered in August of 2017. At the conclusion of the investigation, the MRC promptly sent out a press release detailing the extent of the fraud and indicating that RPGL had paid back the defrauded money.
