A Casino Lac-Leamy employee has testified in the breach of trust and fraud trial against former Liberal MP Raj Grewal.
Jacques Bouchard, an operations supervisor at Casino Lac-Leamy, testified this week at the trial of former MP Raj Grewal in Ottawa. Bouchard provided evidence of Grewal often getting visibly agitated when playing blackjack at the casino four years ago. The trial is scheduled to continue next week.
In September 2020, the RCMP charged Grewal with one count of fraud and four counts of breach of trust. Before that, the former MP released a video in which he confessed that he suffers from gambling addiction and had amassed millions of dollars in debt, which, according to him, was why he committed the alleged crimes.
First Week of Trial Wraps Up
Grewal is represented by lawyer Nader Hasan, who released a statement on Tuesday noting that two of his client’s charges have been withdrawn during the first day of the trial. Additionally, Hasan pointed out that a third charge had also been struck off before the trial commenced.
Hasan commented that the possibility of a trial has been hanging over his client’s head for some time and that he plans to present a solid defence throughout the trial. Hasan noted that he is confident in proving Grewal’s innocence and convincing everyone that his client is not guilty.
On Thursday, Jacques Bouchard stated that he saw Grewal at the casino several times. In his testimony, he noted that on 30 May 2018, he noticed that the former MP was quite agitated while playing blackjack. After the incident, he filed a security investigation report, in which he mentioned that Grewal claimed that he should be winning if he had 19 or 20 points.
In the report, Bouchard explained that he overheard comments from the former MP such as “take all my money”, “come on, have an ace”, and “why didn’t I leave after the first 100 thousand?”. However, after cross-examination, Bouchard admitted that the comments might not be entirely accurate, as a native English speaker would likely not use grammatically incorrect phrases.
