Former advertising executive Jean Lafleur will remain behind bars until at least next week as his bail hearing was postponed today.
Lafleur, 66, pleaded not guilty to 35 sponsorship-related fraud charges in a Montreal courtroom Thursday.
His bail proceeding was postponed until at least next Thursday to allow time for his lawyer to gather copies of statements from hundreds of potential witnesses in the case.
"We don't have all the information necessary to proceed,'' his lawyer, Jean-Claude Hebert, told the judge.
Crown prosecutor Ann-Mary Beauchemin said Thursday she opposed the bail request because it wasn't certain that Lafleur would appear at future court dates if allowed to go free.
On Friday, Hebert said his client was not a flight risk.
"I would like to reassure the Crown,'' said Hebert. "He has four children who live in Montreal.''
Lafleur surrenders
Lafleur surrendered to police earlier Thursday after arriving at the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport from Belize.
As soon as he found out he was wanted, Lafleur had Hebert call police to arrange his surrender, Const. Chantal Mackels of the Surete du Quebec told Â鶹´«Ã½net on Thursday.
"He wanted to give himself up," she said.
A warrant was issued for Lafleur's arrest last Friday alleging he committed $1.6 million worth of fraud through 35 government contracts signed between 1996 and 2001 under the now notorious sponsorship program.
In 1994, Lafleur drew a salary of $108,457. Two years later, he drew one of $2,487,869.
Over the course of the sponsorship debacle, Lafleur was paid about $9.4 million. His family members received an additional $2.8 million.
Lafleur had not been seen in Canada since 2005. Mackels said that he was free to travel because, until the warrant was issued, he had not been charged with anything.
The Liberal sponsorship program was created after the 1995 Quebec referendum, with the majority of its $50 million in annual funding given to that province. Event organizers were given funding based on the criteria that they display large federal banners.
The program became infamously corrupt and eventually played a key role in the fall of the former Liberal government.
Meanwhile, Jacques Paradis was acquitted Thursday of a charge of defrauding the government of $58,000.
Paradis, the one-time head of ad firm Publicite Martin, was charged in connection with a contract that involved the now-relocated Montreal Expos.
Home in Belize
The Globe and Mail reported Friday that Lafleur spent much of his time in Belize, a Central American archipelago, where he rented a two-bedroom house for $1,100 a month.
The residence was a few hundred metres from the beach and just outside the rustic town of San Pedro, where temperatures hovered around 30 Celsius on Thursday, The Globe reports.
The house is elevated on pillars, and has a porch that opens onto a lagoon filled with mangroves. The Globe reports that Lafleur was often seen working on a laptop, reading and sipping French wine.
In the evenings he often barbecued, his landlord Keith Newton told The Globe.
"He seemed very content," Newton said. "He wasn't in a hurry, he didn't want do anything. [My wife] and I said, 'I wonder what kind of business he's going to do out here."
With files from The Canadian Press
