Michael Applebaum (L) smiles with his wife Merle (R) following his swearing-in ceremony to become Montreal's interim mayor in Montreal, Quebec, November 19, 2012. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi
Montreal: Former Montreal mayor Michael Applebaum was found guilty Thursday of eight corruption charges linked to a kickback scheme from a previous government post.
Applebaum, 53, faced 14 criminal charges including fraud against government and breach of trust from his time as mayor of a borough in the mainly French-speaking province of Quebec between 2002 and 2012.
He faces up to five years in prison after a Quebec court found him guilty of taking kickbacks from government construction bids.
Applebaum, the first English-speaking mayor of Canada's second-largest city in a century, resigned in June 2013 a day after he was arrested on corruption charges.
Applebaum maintained he was innocent and did not testify at the trial.
His arrest by an anti-corruption squad came at time when police were investigating widespread corruption in Quebec.
A commission, headed by Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau, was launched in 2011 to investigate alleged graft and bid-rigging after a leaked police report suggested that construction companies were conspiring to keep prices high, and possibly had links to organized crime.
