John Aquino walks into the Superior Court of Justice Courthouse, in Toronto, on Nov. 12.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
A former St. Michael’s hospital executive who presided over the facility’s $300-million redevelopment began promoting the construction company that ultimately won the contract months before he joined the Toronto facility, an Ontario court was told.
Vas Georgiou, the former chief administrative officer of St. Michael’s, and John Aquino, the former president of Bondfield Construction Co. Ltd., are facing criminal fraud charges stemming from the redevelopment of the hospital. They are each charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000. Both men have pleaded not guilty and the allegations against them have not been proven.
According to an e-mail chain that Crown counsel Ellen Weis presented in court on Tuesday, Mr. Georgiou set up a series of meetings with Bruce Gray, an executive vice-president at Infrastructure Ontario (IO) who managed the St. Michael’s project.
Mr. Georgiou began gathering information about the project as early as August, 2012 – five months before he was hired at St. Michael’s. He invited Mr. Gray that month to a golf tournament for a charitable organization he headed. He told Mr. Gray not to forget to bring all the information he had on the St. Mike’s project, according to one of the e-mails.
“I recall giving him information about the project, its complexity,” Mr. Gray told Ms. Weis.
Mr. Georgiou also set up a lunch on Oct. 23, 2012, with Mr. Gray and Mr. Aquino. Asked by Ms. Weis if Mr. Georgiou suggested he meet anyone else in the construction industry, Mr. Gray responded: “Just Bondfield.”
In another e-mail dated Dec. 10, 2012, Mr. Georgiou invited Mr. Gray to a celebratory lunch to thank him, “for all your help on the St. Mike’s process.”
The Crown’s case against Mr. Georgiou and Mr. Aquino focuses on their alleged undisclosed business ties, as well as their alleged secret communications throughout the bidding process, which Bondfield won in 2015.
Prosecutors allege Mr. Georgiou was part of the team selecting companies to bid on the St. Michael’s contract while he was also involved in multiple businesses together with Mr. Aquino, including a commercial real estate company and a bottled water company.
Mr. Georgiou held various executive positions at IO before he left the agency in February, 2012. Mr. Gray testified under cross-examination on Wednesday by Peter Brauti, Mr. Georgiou’s lawyer, that he reported to Mr. Georgiou for five years at IO and considered him a mentor. He also agreed with Mr. Brauti’s suggestion that IO, the agency that manages the province’s major public-sector building projects, encouraged its executives to network with industry members and that he viewed the lunch with Mr. Aquino as an opportunity to get to know one of its major players.
The trial also heard that Mr. Gray has close family ties to a businessman involved in a corporate venture with Mr. Georgiou and Mr. Aquino.
Mr. Gray, who led the teams that selected the short list of contenders for the project as well as the winning bidder, testified on Tuesday that he’s married to the sister of Ted Manziaris.
Under questioning from Ms. Weis, Mr. Gray said he believes Mr. Georgiou had an investment interest in a bottled water venture with Mr. Manziaris, who is also godfather to one of Mr. Georgiou’s children. Mr. Gray said he knew Mr. Georgiou was connected to OTEC Research, the company that owns GP8 sportwater, when he worked at St. Michael’s.
“He kept bottles of the water in his office,” he said.
Mr. Manziaris is a former senior vice-president of GFL Environmental Inc. In October, his home and the home of GFL chief executive officer Patrick Dovigi were fired upon in the middle of the night. There have also been arson attempts targeting the waste-management company.
Mr. Gray said he is unaware of any financial ties between Mr. Georgiou and Mr. Aquino.
A report filed in court last week as an exhibit contains a list of shareholders in OTEC Research, including Mr. Aquino and Arsenal Facilities Consultants, Mr. Georgiou’s family holding company. The 2014 report, prepared by financial consultants Duff & Phelps at the request of St. Michael’s, examined Mr. Georgiou’s private business dealings.
Mr. Georgiou told Duff & Phelps that he invested in OTEC in 2009 through Arsenal Facilities but sold his shares in 2011 to Mr. Manziaris, the report says. Arsenal held Mr. Manziaris’s investment in OTEC in trust.
The report did not uncover Mr. Georgiou’s ties to Mr. Aquino’s commercial real estate business. It also did not mention that Arsenal had lent OTEC $102,639 in March, 2013, more than two months after he joined St. Michael’s Hospital, according to separate court documents filed in 2016 in connection with Mr. Georgiou’s wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the hospital. The hospital fired him in November, 2015.