The former judge responsible for the Longueuil Municipal Court has just been accused of fraud and production of false documents almost five years after a report by our Bureau of Investigation which revealed anomalies in the hours he billed to the City.
• Read also: He acquits his friend on his last day as judge
The deposed magistrate is accused of having produced false documents, in particular default judgments and records of court sessions.
He is also accused of having invoiced the City of Longueuil for hours of work not worked. The amount of the alleged fraud is estimated at more than $38,000.
Mr. Herbert will have to appear at the Longueuil courthouse on March 26 to answer these charges. It is extremely rare for a judge to be the subject of criminal charges (see down there).
The Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) opened an investigation in 2019, following a report from our Investigation Office which revealed that Judge Herbert had added time to certain court sessions, which had allowed him to charge higher fees.
We also reported that, on his last day on the bench before his retirement, he acquitted in 42 seconds a friend who had received a traffic ticket.
- Listen to the interview with Jean-Louis Fortin, Director of the Quebecor Investigation Bureau with Mario Dumont on QUB:
Pursued by Longueuil
This criminal prosecution is in addition to that filed civilly by the City of Longueuil which is claiming $38,576 from Jean Herbert, claiming that he overbilled for 160 sessions at the Municipal Court between 2016 and 2019, through “false declarations carried out knowingly and in bad faith.
Following our reports, the City of Longueuil hired the firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton (RCGT) to examine all of the fees collected by the judges of its municipal court.
The accounting firm had to limit its analyzes to a period of three years, from 2016 to 2019, because the hearing lists and previous files were no longer available. Over this three-year period, Mr. Herbert, who had been a judge in Longueuil since 2002, allegedly overcharged for one session in five, according to what the City alleges in its lawsuit.
“Due to the frequency and extent of the overbilling, the defendant knew or should have known that he was artificially and unlawfully inflating the duration of the sessions he chaired and, consequently, the value of the sums he billed […] In light of the facts presented, it is clear that the defendant lacked rigor and competence, and even integrity and probity,” the motion states.
He could have been dismissed, according to the Council
Mr. Herbert retired at the beginning of 2019. The report by our Bureau of Investigation, published a few weeks later, led the Minister of Justice at the time, Sonia LeBel, to file a complaint with the Judicial Council.
In December 2022, the disciplinary committee of the Judicial Council issued a harsh decision against the former judge, affirming that, if he had not already retired, his dismissal would have been requested. “Taking voluntary and repeated actions in order to take advantage of the system of billing municipal judges per session is unforgivable,” the committee wrote in its decision before closing the file, for lack of possible follow-up.
Before the Council, a prosecutor had notably testified about an event that occurred in 2002, during which the judge asked her to manipulate the duration of a session. If she had accepted, the magistrate’s remuneration would have been increased.
Other cases of Canadian judges facing criminal charges
Jacques Delisle
Former Quebec Court of Appeal judge Jacques Delisle admitted his guilt to a charge of manslaughter of his wife on March 14, 2024, thus ending a legal saga lasting several years.
Michel Chartier
This former Manitoba Provincial Court judge pleaded guilty in June 2016 to a charge of driving while intoxicated. He had resigned as judge a few months earlier.
David Ramsay
Former judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia, David Ramsay was sentenced to 7 years in prison in 2004 for beating and sexually assaulting young Indigenous girls.
With the collaboration of Ian Gemme