Former radio host Mario Lirette faces several more months in prison. The fallen Rythme FM star – guilty of a major scam – is still posing as the victim and complaining about his “excessive” punishment. “You are not the victim,” the Quebec Commission cuts off the conditional releases.
Posted at 4:39pm
“You are basically saying that you were the victim of a scam, that you were good-natured and naive. They don’t seem to understand the responsibility of gestures; Willful blindness is not a crime, it is an attitude and a choice,” concludes Commissioner Suzanne DeVette, denying her request for release.
The 71-year-old man, who had been in custody for five months, was seeking a preparatory parole. He was sentenced to two years in prison, less than a day, last November after pleading guilty to fraud charges at the Longueuil courthouse.
The fraud committed by Mario Lirette – with the help of his accomplice Joël Verreault – is significant: losses of $222,000 for the banks and tens of thousands of dollars for a victim. Eight bricklaying companies associated with Mario Lirette were involved as part of their fraudulent scheme.
Essentially, the radio host used a check-cavalry-style scheme (kiting), a fraudulent technique of writing checks from a bank account with insufficient funds, depositing those checks into another account, and then withdrawing the money. The value of the fraudulent checks is $913,000.
Even though he admits his guilt, Mario Lirette “greatly” minimizes his responsibility and poses as the victim of his accomplice. “They say that some allegations are false and that the verdict is disproportionate,” the commission said.
Mario Lirette recounts that he found himself in a “spiral” and then showed willful blindness by following his accomplice. He adds that he knows nothing about business, a claim denied by the Commission. “You always believed that [votre complice] was the scammer and the criminal and not you,” says the commission.
Because of that speech, a source refused to accept Mario Lirette as part of his parole. In his eyes, however, he wasn’t kept because the resource didn’t want to engage with a “public figure” like him.
According to the Commission, Mario Lirette still poses an “unacceptable” risk of recidivism for society due to the seriousness of his crime, an “organized and structured” fraud. In addition, the fact that the perpetrator communicated with his accomplice after his arrest shows that when he was banned from doing so, his “blatant lack of judgement” and his “adherence to lax values”, adds the commissioner.