The continuation of a producer of cannabis ends up in the ashtray

Éric Thibault

Thursday, 22-feb-2018 01:00

UPDATE
Thursday, 22-feb-2018 01:00

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After being touted for not having denounced to the police, a cultivator of pot has dragged an alleged accomplice to justice, hoping him to pass half a bill salty 700 000 $ as the tax office claims on his illegal gains.

Likely to be without precedent in Quebec, this judicial review brought by Pierre Dupuis, a recidivist, 70 years of age, however, was declared inadmissible and improper by the judge Sylvain Provencher, February 12, at the courthouse in Granby.

“He who violates the law looks in vain for his rescue,” ruled the judge in citing this maxim, written in latin on the facade of the building which houses the Court of appeal of Quebec, in Montreal.

May 21, 2014, the Quebec police had arrested Pierre Dupuis, who resides in Stukely-Sud, Estrie, and the other seven producers of cannabis during an investigation that resulted in the dismantling of four greenhouses clandestine and enter 4400 seedlings of the pot.

The defendant – a man without a criminal record who has never been the subject of criminal charges and in which The Journal taira identity – has not been arrested. In its lawsuit, Dupuis claimed not to have denounced that ” despite the insistence of investigators “.

Described as the mastermind of the network, he quickly pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in penitentiary. It was his second conviction to a penalty of detention for this crime since 2010.

The man with the green thumb was incarcerated when Revenue Quebec has filed a claim of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in taxes on his undeclared income, sales taxes and tax penalties.

“Reckless “

In the lawsuit that he filed in superior Court after his release in may 2017, the grower of marijuana alleged that the defendant and he had agreed ” to unite their financial resources and their knowledge to operate a commercial enterprise specialized in the cultivation of cannabis “.

As of 2010, they would have invested in “equal shares” of the funds required for the establishment of their “society” – that they had not registered because of his illegal activities – and would have shared the profits in the following four years.

Criminal operation

But as the defendant “has refused to pay its share” to the exchequer and in the ” alleged liabilities of the company “, Dupuis has required ” the aid of the courts to obtain “justice”, ” summary justice on a sarcastic voice.

However, such a “contract company” is ” zero “, since its business activities, or the production and sale of cannabis, ” are not only illegal and criminal in nature, but contrary to good morals and to social order “, ruled the Court, in describing this use of” incongruous ” and ” reckless “.

“It is unthinkable that the courts are the accessory to [a] claim based on a contract the object of which is a criminal operation,” concluded the judge Sylvain Provencher.