Former Chambly Mayor Denis Lavoie was arrested by the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) on Tuesday.
Posted at 4:57pm
He was charged with obstruction of justice and breach of trust. After being met by investigators, he was released with a promise to appear at the Longueuil courthouse on May 10.
“Mr Lavoie would have tried to obstruct legal action at Chambly Municipal Court,” UPAC spokesman Mathieu Galarneau said on Tuesday. The alleged acts occurred during Denis Lavoie’s last term as mayor of the municipality from January 2016 to May 2019.
Recall that the ex-elector resigned in a dispute over his office in April 2019, when his city was placed under the supervision of the Municipal Commission of Quebec (CMQ).
In charge of the city since 2005, he justified his decision with health reasons, without mentioning the riots in Chambly at the time.
In a report aired a few months earlier on Radio Canada’s Enquête program, citizens said they were intimidated and threatened by Denis Lavoie.
The Commission Municipale du Québec had launched an investigation at the time, and in February 2019, UPAC conducted searches of the city’s offices without specifying the nature of its intervention at the time.
A few hours later, the Minister for Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest, announced that the city was placed under guardianship “because there is no longer a relationship of trust”.