XPost: can.politics, ab.politics, bc.politics   
   XPost: ont.politics, sk.politics   
   From: ConsRCons@govt.cda   
      
   He actually claimed $86/day for meals he ate (or didn't eat) in his own   
   home in Ottawa.  No bloody wonder he looks like he does.   
   ______________________________   
   CBC News Posted: Nov 24, 2013   
      
   How the RCMP mapped the Wright-Duffy money trail   
   Police piecing together puzzle of how $90K made its way from political   
   staffer to senator   
      
      
   RCMP investigators have already pieced together an almost-complete   
   picture of how $90,000 from the prime minister's former chief of staff   
   ended up in Senator Mike Duffy's bank account. But they want more   
   information to finish the narrative.   
      
   The money from Nigel Wright's personal resources was used to repay   
   inappropriate housing and living expenses filed by Duffy over a   
   four-year period.   
      
   The origin, purpose, deliverance and acceptance of that $90,000 could   
   result in charges against Duffy and Wright. Court documents released   
   this week show both men are being investigated by the Mounties for   
   bribery, fraud and breach of trust. No charges have been laid and the   
   allegations have not been proven in court.   
      
   In an affidavit filed in an Ottawa court Wednesday, RCMP Cpl. Greg   
   Horton laid out how the money travelled from Wright to Duffy.   
      
   Although Duffy owned his Ottawa suburban home before he was appointed to   
   the Senate, he declared that his P.E.I. winterized cottage was his   
   primary residence, allowing him to charge secondary expenses for his   
   house in the nation's capital.   
   The money route   
      
   Once it was established that Duffy had to repay his expenses, he took   
   out a $91,600 mortgage loan from the Royal Bank. In his affidavit,   
   Horton says, "I believe this loan was an effort by Senator Duffy to   
   create a paper trail so he could show that he obtained the loan to repay   
   the money, if ever asked."   
      
   Duffy would later tell reporters he voluntarily paid back the   
   inappropriate expenses on his own, although he didn't believe he had   
   done anything wrong. "It was the right thing to do," he said, explaining   
   he'd taken out a bank loan to make the repayment   
      
   On the same day Duffy obtained the mortgage loan, he took $80,000 from   
   his private account and put it into a line of credit he said was being   
   used for renovating his cottage.   
      
   According to Horton, "He now had $91,600 from a mortgage loan, so having   
   no need for it for the repayment, he put $80,000 of that money on his   
   line of credit."   
      
   The officer believes Duffy knew a bank draft from Wright was on its way.   
      
   Three days later, on March 25, Wright arranged for a bank draft worth   
   $90,172.24 to be delivered to the office of Janice Payne, Duffy's   
   lawyer. The figure was the exact amount Senate administration staff   
   calculated Duffy owed in inappropriately claimed expenses.   
      
   On March 26, a branch-to-branch transfer put $90,172.24 into Duffy's   
   private RBC account.   
      
   On that same day, a personal cheque from Duffy for $90,172.24 made out   
   to the Receiver General was delivered to the Senate.   
      
   Horton says in the affidavit that he believes this was Nigel Wright's   
   money. One purpose of the 81-page affidavit is to persuade a judge to   
   allow him access to bank records showing who transferred the money into   
   Duffy's account, and from where.   
      
   That information would complete the picture of a complex routing of   
   money designed to hide the source of the funds, and a plan to make it   
   seem Duffy had used his own resources to repay his expenses.   
      
      
   Why Duffy's Senate debt jumped from $32K to $90K   
      
   A question that rises out of the RCMP documents is how the amount of   
   money Duffy owed the Senate for inappropriate expenses escalated from   
   $32,000, a figure Wright, in early February, initially thought was the   
   correct amount — which the Conservative Party was apparently willing to   
   pay — to $90,000.   
      
   The party balked at the higher figure, which Wright wound up covering   
   since Duffy either couldn't, or wouldn't.   
      
   The smaller figure may have come from a Deloitte audit on Duffy's   
   expenses, conducted in February, that concluded the P.E.I. senator   
   charged about $34,000 in living expenses for the 18-month period the   
   independent accounting firm was tasked to examine.   
      
   The audit shows Duffy collected a private accommodation allowance for   
   his house in Kanata, an Ottawa suburb, because presumably he didn't have   
   a mortgage.   
      
   The private accommodation allowance is $28 per day, amounting to about   
   $10,000 a year. Had Duffy been able to show Senate administration he had   
   a mortgage or a lease, he could have charged double that amount   
      
   But the the allowance for per diems or meals is much higher — $86 for   
   every day an out-of-town senator is in Ottawa on Senate business.   
      
   Wright, an independently wealthy man who never personally charged   
   expenses, didn't seem aware Duffy was charging per diems. When he found   
   out, he told the RCMP, he was incensed that Duffy was getting paid for   
   meals he ate in his own house in Ottawa.   
      
   Once the Senate looked back at the entire four years of Duffy's Senate   
   tenure, his ineligible private accommodation costs and per diems jumped   
   to $80,000 with another $10,000 for interest, as well as the payback of   
   claims Duffy said he mistakenly made while on vacation in Florida.   
      
   Wright ended up reimbursing the entire amount out of his own pocket,   
   saying in an email obtained by the RCMP, "I am beyond furious ... the   
   money will be repaid."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)