Jocelyn Dupuis, the former head of the FTQ-Construction union who was convicted on fraud-related charges last September, has been sentenced to one year in prison.
Justice Denis Lavergne sentenced Dupuis to two concurrent 12 month sentences for forgery and fraud totaling more than $63,000.
Dupuis’s lawyer Jean-Daniel Debkoski said he would ask his client to be released pending an appeal.
Dupuis will likely spend the weekend behind bars at the very least.
Dupuis has always maintained that the misappropriated funds were used to finance trade union activities, a claim supported by the FTQ-Construction union, which claimed not to have been defrauded.
Justice Lavergne rejected that notion.“That assertion is clearly contradicted by the evidence at trial," he said.
The money was taken between December 2007 and November 2008.
-With a file from The Canadian Press
