Acting Police Chief Sylvie Hauth has taken the stand at suspended Chief JP Levesque’s breach of trust and obstruction of justice trial.
She detailed a conversation she had in the Chief’s office during her predecessor’s retirement party.
Hauth says Levesque told her that he had given a heads up to Mayor Keith Hobbs that there was an investigation.
She says her response was ‘ok’ and returned to the party.
After Levesque returned from two weeks of holidays over the New Year he provided an explanation to Hauth on why he told Hobbs about the investigation.
Hauth says it was to protect her. “He knew that he would be away for two weeks and I would be alone in a new position and this matter could be made public so I would be dealing with it all alone.”
In cross examination, Levesque’s lawyer asked Hauth about how difficult it is to act as the Chief.
He asked Hauth if it was true that in many situations there are many possible actions a Chief can take that come with a number of possible outcomes.
The defense suggested that “a perfect decisions isn’t always made, but perhaps the best one in that situation is made.”
Hauth was also asked if it was possible she didn’t report Levesque’s disclosure of the Hobbs extortion investigation to Board Chair Jackie Dojack and the Mayor because it wasn’t severe.
She was also asked if she reported it to any of the police service governing bodies and she said no.
Earlier testimony also recapped the meeting on December 14th of last year between City Police and the RCMP.
It was again said that the RCMP were in the process of turning the Hobbs extortion investigation over to TBPS and they were going to possibly have the matter then turned over to the OPP.
Hauth says they wanted to wait for a review of the files from the RCMP before handing it over to provincial police.
It was suggested the OPP might investigate because the City was already investigating lawyer Alexander (Sandy) Zaitzeff’s sexual related charges.