A full day of hearings was held on Tuesday to examine and cross-examine Sergeant Sergio Miranda of the Sûreté du Québec in the case between the Maricourt establishment and the RACJ.
The Havana Resort campsite has in fact appealed the RACJ judgment rendered last March, which revoked its alcohol license for several environmental, security and public peace breaches. The Administrative Tribunal of Quebec (TAQ) is currently hearing the appeal.
Essentially, Sergeant Miranda was one of the investigators of Project Mygale, a major investigation held between 2014 and 2016 into an organized tobacco smuggling network between the United States and the community of Kahnawake.
From the start of this operation, explained the investigator, Dominic Perrier, who is now a manager at the Havana Resort campsite, was targeted as a person of interest. At the time, he was a director of the Transport RPM trucking company.
Mr. Perrier is the father of the two shareholders of the campsite and the son of its administrator. The Régie, in its initial judgment, considered that the application for an alcohol license was made for the benefit of Mr. Perrier, without him appearing in the documents.
This is why the Mygale project was brought back. Dominic Perrier had been placed under surveillance, arrested on charges of gangsterism and fraud of more than $5,000 and questioned at the time of Mygale, because the police had enough evidence to support these actions. However, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions had not filed charges against Mr. Perrier, because he could not establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, notes Sergeant Miranda.
The Havana Resort campsite lost its alcohol license last year, which notably affected its famous bar inside its swimming pool. (Archives La Tribune)
Involved or not?
In questioning, he stressed that the fact that “beyond a reasonable doubt” was not reached does not mean that Mr. Perrier was not involved in tobacco smuggling.
“At our level, Mr. Perrier was linked to the administration” of the smuggling structure, said Sergeant Miranda.
“We had the reasons” to be interested in Mr. Perrier, he added.
During cross-examination, the lawyer for the Havana Resort, Me David Beaudoin, questioned the police officer at length to make him repeat several times that the investigators did not have enough evidence against Mr. Perrier and that his links with several members of the tobacco trafficking organization targeted in 2014 are not proven.
Me Beaudoin makes much of the fact that, despite “the shadowing and wiretapping to attach Dominic Perrier”, the police were not able to gather sufficient proof. He believes that this may indicate that his client has nothing to reproach himself for.
Dominic Perrier (Jessica Garneau/Archives La Tribune)
The link
But what does a ten-year-old investigation have to do with the revocation or not of a campsite’s alcohol license?
In its evidence filed with the TAQ, the RACJ linked a lot of case law, notably some which tend to demonstrate that it is possible to refuse the issuance of a liquor license in cases similar to that of Mr. Perrier and the Mygale investigation.
In a decision rendered to the RACJ court in July 2023, manager Maude Lajoie is interested in a case where the holder of an alcohol license in a bar in the Center-du-Québec region saw it being disputed. We noted in particular the possible link between the holder, owner of the bar, and organized crime in drug trafficking cases.
“In his representations, the licensee’s lawyer argues that no drug transaction took place at the establishment, that no proof to this effect has been provided and that no criminal charges have been brought against him. the encounter [du propriétaire]. To this, the Court will respond that no criminal charge is required for the Court to assess the capacity of a holder to operate a liquor license with competence and integrity. Moreover, the burden of proof required before an administrative body differs from that applicable before a court in penal or criminal matters. The undersigned must judge on the balance of probabilities whether the plaintiff has established this capacity,” writes Ms. Lajoie.
In other words, the commissioner explains that administrative files are not required to rely solely on formal criminal charges or the principle of “beyond a reasonable doubt” to consider an item of evidence, but rather the balance of probabilities.
This, Sergeant Miranda repeated on Tuesday, seemed to point to Dominic Perrier’s involvement in tobacco smuggling in 2014. It would therefore be possible, according to the case law presented by the RACJ, that this element discourages the TAQ from granting a liquor license at Havana Resort ten years later.
New hearing dates are planned in the case in June.
