HALIFAX – A preliminary hearing could take up to seven days for the lone sitting member of the Nova Scotia legislature facing charges in an expense scandal, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Lyle Howe appeared in a Halifax court Tuesday on behalf of Trevor Zinck. The case returns to court June 28 to set a date for the preliminary hearing.
Zinck, who sits as an Independent in the legislature, pleaded not guilty last month to charges of theft over $5,000, fraud over $5,000 and breach of trust.
The defence and the Crown have agreed that a seven day preliminary hearing will be needed to deal with the amount of evidence in the case.
Outside court, Howe said the burden will be on the Crown to prove the case should proceed to trial in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.
“I definitely want to question whether there is enough evidence to take it to trial,” said Howe. “There are a lot of things that go into determining what you want to do at a preliminary and I just decided that’s best for my client.”
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Crown attorney Andrew Macdonald said it will take time to go through the evidence at the preliminary inquiry.
“There’s a significant amount of documentary evidence and there will be a couple of witnesses who will be on the stand for a lengthy period of time as they go through the documents and explain what they mean,” he said outside court.
Lawyers for two of the three other men charged in the expense scandal also appeared in court on their clients’ behalf on Tuesday.
Former Conservative Richard Hurlburt’s case was set over to Aug. 31 for election and plea on three counts of uttering a forged document and one count each of fraud and breach of trust. Hurlburt’s lawyer was granted extra time to consider new evidence recently disclosed by the Crown.
A preliminary inquiry date of Jan. 16 was also set for former Liberal legislature member Russell MacKinnon on 10 charges, one each of fraud and breach of trust, while the remaining eight are related to uttering false expense accounts.
Meanwhile, the case of former Liberal legislature member Dave Wilson is scheduled for election and plea on July 7.
Wilson faces 31 charges of uttering forged documents and one count each of breach of trust and fraud.
The allegations against the four men are yet to be proven in court.
The charges were laid in February following a nine-month criminal investigation by the RCMP.
Police became involved after auditor general Jacques Lapointe handed over forensic audit files on specific transactions involving five former and one current member of the legislature.The audit followed a report released by Lapointe in February 2010 on thespending of constituency funds by members of the 52-seat legislature.
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