The setbacks of the former mayor of Sorel-Tracy Serge Péloquin continue. The former elected official now faces criminal charges for spying on the city clerk, an episode that cost him his job as mayor last year. This time he faces prison if found guilty.
The 64-year-old is charged with two serious crimes: breach of trust by a public official and interception of private communications. He would have committed these crimes between November 7, 2020 and April 12, 2021 by means of a “camera”, indicates the summons filed on July 21.
Serge Péloquin will have to appear on August 28 at the Sorel-Tracy courthouse.
This is a monumental fall for this once popular mayor. He had also been elected with large majorities in 2017 and 2021. However, in June 2022, the Superior Court of Quebec declared him disqualified from exercising his functions for one year, thus confirming the conclusions of the Commission municipale du Québec.
While he was mayor of Sorel-Tracy, Serge Péloquin allegedly hid a recording device in the office of the municipal clerk in order to spy on him. The mayor would have acted in this way because he suspected the clerk of certain failings. The official concerned is said to have discovered the device in April 2022.
The Commission municipale du Québec determined that Serge Péloquin had abused his position by acting in this way. The Sûreté du Québec and the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit then took an interest in the file.
In an open letter published in The Press, a few days after his dismissal, Serge Péloquin said he would admit having committed a “fault in good faith”. He then defended his approach with the City Clerk.
“I risked my career to shed light on an internal situation that seemed major and very worrying to me, I expressed these same concerns internally and they turned a blind eye. […] I shouldn’t have gone about it that way, but this choice of audio recording seemed to me the only one available to me, in the circumstances, in order to gather reliable, authentic and irrefutable proof that was not based solely on my testimony, ”wrote Serge Péloquin.
With Isabelle Ducas, The Press