The city of Longueuil is suing its city court's former judge, accusing him of stealing nearly $40,000 from taxpayers.
• Also read: A judge who was severely reprimanded by the Judicial Council following our investigation
• Also read: Thousands of dollars were overpaid
Longueuil is seeking exactly $38,576 from retired judge Jean Herbert, who allegedly overbilled for 160 Municipal Court sessions between 2016 and 2019 because he “knowingly and in bad faith made false statements.”
It was our investigative office that lifted the veil on this story in 2019 by reporting that the judge had extended the time for certain sessions in court, which had earned him higher fees. We also reported that on his last day on the bench before retiring, he acquitted a friend who had received a traffic ticket in 42 seconds.
“Stunned” by these revelations, the city of Longueuil then commissioned the law firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton (RCGT) to examine all the fees collected by the judges of its municipal court, as we can read in the application to initiate the prosecution proceedings.
Every fifth session was overloaded
The audit firm had to limit its analysis to a three-year period, from 2016 to 2019, because the hearing lists and previous files were no longer available.
During that three-year period, Mr. Herbert, who had been a judge in Longueuil since 2002, allegedly overcharged for one out of five sessions, the city alleges in its lawsuit.
“Due to the frequency and extent of the inflated invoices, the defendant knew or should have known that he was artificially and unlawfully inflating the duration of the meetings he chaired and thus the value of the amounts he invoiced (…) In the light.” “In view of the facts presented, it is clear that the defendant lacked care and competence and even integrity and probity,” the motion states.
Resumption of proceedings
This lawsuit was originally filed by the city in October 2021 and then temporarily suspended pending the report of the investigative committee of the Judicial Council, which was also supposed to decide on Judge Herbert's case.
It was then Justice Minister Sonia LeBel who filed one of the three complaints received by the Judicial Council against the former judge following our report in 2019.
In December 2022, the Judicial Council's Disciplinary Committee issued a harsh sentence against the former judge, stating that his dismissal would have been requested if he had not already retired. “It is inexcusable to take voluntary and repeated actions to exploit the system of billing municipal judges per session,” the committee wrote in its decision before closing the file due to a lack of possible follow-up action.
In recent weeks, the city of Longueuil has decided to resume its legal proceedings. “The next step for the city is to file a motion to lift the stay of proceedings in the coming weeks to resolve the case and obtain a hearing date,” the city told us via email.
On the police side, the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit, which raided the Longueuil Municipal Court in June 2019, did not want to comment on the progress of its investigation.
When reached by phone, Jean Herbert stated that he did not have time to speak with us before hanging up.
– In collaboration with Ian Gemme
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