Applebaum charged with 14 offenses, including breach of trust, fraud, corruption, conspiracy, receiving secret commissions.
By JTA
TORONTO — Montreal’s mayor and a former city alderman, both Jews, were arrested as part of a crackdown on corruption.Michael Applebaum, who became the city’s first-ever Jewish mayor when he was appointed to the post last November, was taken into custody Monday morning by agents of the anti-corruption unit, UPAC. He was charged with 14 offenses, including breach of trust, fraud, municipal corruption, conspiracy and receiving secret commissions.Also arrested was Saulie Zajdel, an ex-City Council member who ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Canada’s last federal election.Applebaum, Zajdel and a third man arrested Monday, Jean Yves Brisson, were being held by Quebec Provincial Police.Zajdel is charged with five corruption-related offenses and Brisson with four offenses related to the years-long investigation into corruption in and around Montreal.Applebaum, 50, won a City Council vote in November to serve as interim mayor for one year, with a promise not to run in the next municipal election. He replaced Gerald Tremblay, who resigned in a corruption scandal that linked him to graft and organized crime.Zajdel was a Montreal city councillor from 1986 to 2009. He also served as a director of the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation for more than four years.According to his LinkedIn page, he is now a municipal affairs consultant and real estate broker.Zajdel, running for the Conservative Party in Montreal, lost in his bid for a federal seat to Liberal Party lawmaker and human rights activist Irwin Cotler, who also is Jewish.According to police, Zajdel and Brisson had worked in the local electoral district of Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dâme-de-Grace, which Applebaum had represented as either a councillor or mayor since 1994.
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