Criminal charges of fraud and breach of trust against former Liberal senator Mac Harb have been withdrawn.
Harb wasn’t in court Friday to hear an out-of-town prosecutor tell Ontario Court judge Heather Perkins-McVey that the Crown felt there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.
“Mac Harb is an honest, innocent man. He followed the rules openly and honestly,” said his lawyer, Sean May.
“Today’s decision is a full vindication of Mac Harb. We knew that in a trial he would be found not just not guilty but declared innocent,” said May. “Today’s decision not to prosecute is in many ways the most powerful statement possible.”
The charges against Harb were withdrawn a day after the RCMP revealed they would not be laying charges against Sen. Pamela Wallin in relation to her travel expense claims.
Both follow the acquittal earlier this year of Sen. Mike Duffy of 31 criminal charges related to expense claims following a high-profile trial.
May said he thinks the decision acquitting Duffy played a large role in the Crown’s decision to pull the case.
May said Harb intended to rely on a similar defence — that the Senate rules were not clear.
May called the case against Harb the “most highly politicized prosecution in Canadian history.”
“It played out publicly during the course of a federal election,” he said.
Today’s decision not to prosecute is in many ways the most powerful statement possible
Harb was charged in February 2014 after a 10-month investigation of his Senate expense claims by the RCMP.
Harb’s case has been making headlines since December 2012, when the Citizen first reported on expenses he charged for time in Ottawa while claiming his primary residence was in Westmeath, Ont.
The charges were laid after more than a year of public and police scrutiny of the living expenses he claimed for time he said he was staying in Ottawa on Senate business while maintaining primary residences outside the city.
Senators are allowed to claim up to $22,000 in living expenses for time in Ottawa if their primary residence is more than 100 kilometres from Parliament Hill.
The RCMP interviewed neighbours, contractors and others to test Harb’s claim he was living primarily in Cobden, Ont., and later, in Westmeath.
Real estate documents uncovered by the Mounties showed that Harb had transferred 99.99 per cent ownership of one of his homes to a diplomat from Brunei, a transaction they allege put the mortgage holder, Royal Bank of Canada, at risk.
Harb, a former alderman and MP for Ottawa Centre, quit the Senate in 2013 and repaid $231,000 in disputed expenses.
He had steadfastly maintained his innocence.