MONTREAL -- Accused money launderer Pamela Mattock Porter is once again trying to convince a judge she is not a flight risk.
In jail for 66 days so far, Porter will learn Friday if she will be granted bail while she faces charges of conspiracy and laundering more than $22.5 million in the construction of the MUHC superhospital.
The hearing is a review of a judge’s earlier decision to deny Porter bail. Prosecutors maintain she is a flight risk.
Porter, a 53-year-old British native, testified in court on Tuesday, although the exact nature of her testimony is subject to a publication ban.
Several other witnesses, including an acquaintance of Porter's and a Surete du Quebec police investigator, also spoke out at this second bail hearing.
Porter's two daughters attended the hearing, making their first appearance in the courthouse since their mother was arrested in Panama and transferred to a Canadian jail.
Arthur Porter, her husband, is still in a jail in Panama where he is fighting his extradition to Canada.
The former head of Canada’s spy-watchdog agency, which montirs CSIS, Porter is accused of masterminding a plot to collect $22.5 million in bribes from SNC-Lavalin in exchange for granting the contract to build the MUHC superhospital. He is charged with breach of trust, defrauding the government and accepting bribes.
The other men accused in the case, all of whom are now in Canada, were all granted bail in exchange for posting bonds of $50,000 to $100,000.
Porter, who had been living in the Bahamas with her husband for several months before traveling to Panama and being arrested, was denied bail when she first made the application in June.
Her preliminary hearing on charges of money laundering and living off the avails of crime is scheduled to begin in Sept. 16.
