Quebec anti-corruption police arrest retired judge, say he inflated hours worked

MONTREAL — Quebec anti-corruption police say they have arrested a retired municipal court judge for fraud.

Police say Jean Herbert, who sat on the municipal court in Longueuil, Que., south of Montreal, created fake records to inflate the time he claimed to have spent hearing cases.

He is alleged to have billed the City of Longueuil more than $38,000 for hours he didn’t work between July 2016 and March 2019.

Quebec’s judicial council, the Conseil de la magistrature, ruled in 2022 that the judge had overcharged the City of Longueuil 162 times, but didn’t sanction him because he had retired in 2019.

The council also found that he had violated ethics rules by changing the date of a neighbour’s court appearance for a traffic ticket so he could hear the case — and acquit her — before he retired.

Herbert is scheduled to appear in court on March 26.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2024.

The Canadian Press