XPost: can.politics, ab.politics, bc.politics
XPost: ont.politics, sk.politics
From: damnthetorpedoes@duck.com
On Sun, 24 Nov 2013 15:14:21 -0800, Greg Carr
wrote:
>On 24/11/2013 2:56 PM, Con?RCon? wrote:
>> 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."
>Definitely a pig. Bad Harper appointment good that he is suspended and
>hopefully facing judicial sanction.
And now we have two more journalists running for office in Toronto. I
guess they figure that's where the money is.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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