Sam Katz Implicated In Police HQ Scandal?

[The Unknown Poster]

I cant say I'd be too upset to see Sammy perp walked over this.

CBC:

Former Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz received thousands of dollars in personal cheques from Caspian Construction, the contractor at the centre of a police investigation into the construction of the city's new police headquarters, according to information to obtain a search warrant that was unsealed today.

An estimated 10 to 12 cheques were issued by Caspian to Katz around 2013, according to an affidavit filed by RCMP Const. Marc Allard and based on statements from company employees.

The affidavit was used to obtain a warrant to search Caspian's offices in December 2014.

Allard said a senior accounting assistant who worked with Caspian for five years told investigators "the cheques were sporadic, sometimes in the amount of a few thousand."

She was told by her superiors the cheques were payment for Winnipeg Jets tickets or concert tickets at the MTS Centre to share a box, Allard's affidavit said.

There was one cheque issued to Katz for $30,000, according to the court documents, and police said the accounting assistant was advised it was because "the fees for the MTS box had come due."

Another former accounting assistant employed by Caspian told police "there were a couple of cheques written to Katz during her employment with Caspian."

She told police she entered a cheque to Katz in the accounting system for $4,000 or $6,000. She filed a copy of the cheque, which was stamped by Caspian owner Armik Babakhanians' signature, into a folder marked "K" for Katz, according to the document.

The former accounting assistant said she discovered another cheque for Katz in this folder for around $6,000. The document noted that "both cheques were out of the Caspian Construction account and were personal cheques to Katz and not to a named company."

When reached by CBC News on Monday, Katz said, "Obviously it appears I've sold off some seats and I don't know where the problem is there, but I appreciate you enlightening me, because no one ever talked to me."

Katz said he has always been willing to speak to the RCMP about their investigation, but he was never contacted.

'There is no relationship,' says Katz

Katz said he has never been involved in any business dealings with Caspian Construction or Armik Babakhanians.

"There is no relationship. On many occasions, all sorts of people call me up for tickets for all sorts of stuff … concerts, et cetera," Katz said.

"Someone would ask me, 'Can you get tickets for a sold-out event?' I would get them tickets and they would pay me back."

Katz said numerous acquaintances would ask for tickets. He would put them on his credit card and they would pay him back, he added.

He added that he does not a share a box at the MTS Centre with Babakhanians, but he said Babakhanians did buy a portion of the box at one time.

"I have basically put together a scenario for Jets tickets, absolutely … it varies every year, who's in it," Katz said, adding that Babakhanians was one of several people that bought space in the box.

Katz said he didn't feel it was necessary to disclose the relationship with Babakhanians to auditors who were examining the police headquarters project.

Armik Babakhanian declined to comment on the search warrant documents and referred CBC to his lawyer. The lawyer has not yet responded.

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

With files from the CBC's Sean Kavanagh

[FrostyWinnipeg]

Sam Katz was StubHub.

[The Unknown Poster]

4 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Sam Katz was StubHub.

If his excuse is he was re-selling Jets tickets, he better hope he didnt mark them up at all.  Its like when they got Al Capone for tax evasion because they couldnt get him on his big crimes or OJ goes away for "armed robbery" because everyone felt bad about the murder acquittal.  Sammy finally goes down for excessive scalping.

[bustamente]

How many seats does 30 k get you

[The Unknown Poster]

This whole thing smells dirty:

 

Free Press:

When a sitting mayor sells concert and hockey tickets to a contractor who bids on city work, the optics are terrible.

As columnist Dan Lett opined in Tuesday’s Free Press, former mayor Sam Katz appeared to demonstrate little regard for his office when he accepted cheques from Caspian Construction as payment for tickets to Winnipeg Jets games and concerts at the MTS Centre.

If optics were the only consideration, it was unwise for Katz to accept personal cheques from the company awarded Winnipeg’s police-headquarters contract, eventually valued at $172 million. But these transactions, revealed in the contents of a search warrant that allowed the RCMP to raid Caspian’s office in 2014, have ramifications beyond the realm of public relations.

The revelation of some form of personal relationship between Katz and Caspian president Armik Babakhanians, described as a friendship by one witness in the RCMP warrant, places three outstanding questions about the procurement of Winnipeg’s police headquarters in a new context.

These questions are aside from the RCMP’s avenue of investigation in 2014, when the Free Press first reported the Mounties were looking into allegations about doctored invoices at the police headquarters project.

They concern the larger question of how the police headquarters construction contract was awarded in the first place. These questions involve the security clearance granted to Caspian, changes to the construction-bonding requirement on the contract and the recipient of the contract itself.

The security-clearance issue first emerged in 2012, when the Free Press and CBC Manitoba reported Babakhanians had a business relationship on a downtown property with the late Ray Rybachuk, who had a lengthy criminal record and ties to organized crime.

Babakhanians moved quickly to sever his ties to Rybachuk, but the publicity forced Winnipeg police to reveal they conducted a special vetting of Babakhanians to ensure he posed no threat.

Typically, entities with ties to organized crime, however tenuous, are not permitted to bid on police work. Earlier, a police source who spoke to the Free Press alleged city hall exerted pressure to allow an individual with organized crime ties to bid on police headquarters work.

When asked about the allegation, former police chief Keith McCaskill said, "Look, it’s corporate." Aside from this statement, there has never been independent corroboration of the source’s complaint.

The 2014 KPMG audit of the police headquarters project did not deal with the security clearance. It did, however, draw attention to a second question related to the award of the police headquarters construction contract.

The initial contract, for $50,000 worth of pre-construction services, was awarded to a joint venture between Caspian Projects and Akman Construction. This work was assigned to Caspian alone when Akman bowed out.

That was not problematic. The problem arose when the city awarded what initially was a $137-million construction contract to Caspian Projects without the firm ever submitting a solo bid.

"We note that Caspian did not submit a proposal, and that Caspian was awarded the construction contract," the KPMG auditors wrote.

The third and final question related to the contract award pertains to a city decision to reduce the size of the construction bond, which is a pot of money a company must set aside as a form of assurance it can complete the work.

Six says before the police headquarters bid opportunity closed, the documents were amended to reduce the size of the construction bond to $25 million, or about one quarter of the value of the original construction estimate. The city later asserted in a report this was done to allow more companies to bid on the work. The city also said the reduction was conducted at the behest of the Surety Association of Canada, which represents the construction bonding industry.

As the Free Press reported in 2013, an official with the Surety Association of Canada called this "bullshit" and stated it would not recommend reducing a construction bond below the threshold of 50 per cent of the total construction estimate.

The cheaper bond resulted in cost savings, the city explained. The winning bid, from Caspian and Akman, was also the lowest.

None of these questions has ever been resolved. But they are worth asking again, now that Katz has established a personal relationship of some form with the president of Caspian Construction.

[Goalie]

I hope Katz goes away for this, The guys a criminal and it's obvious. It was obvious a long time ago. 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

Katz is teflon.

[Goalie]

I don't think he is. If this is proven to be true and a payoff of sorts.... he's in BIG trouble. 

[Pete Catan's Ghost]

To me, it's about his audacity.

This specific situation may or may not be acceptable in the legal sense, but...what acting mayor with any sense of propriety or concern about the image he should be upholding, would get involved in something that appears so unethical?

I just hate the way he shrugs his shoulders and I says I did nothing illegal, while everything around the whole situation smells like sewage.

 

[The Unknown Poster]

He's always been that way.  He's a very arrogant person.  I rented the ballpark once and it turned into a huge dispute that was lucky not to end up in court (my partner and I wanted it to end up in court but our business manager made a deal behind our backs).

When he was running for Mayor the first time, he promised to put the Goldeyes into a blind trust to avoid any appearance of conflict.  When he was elected he changed his mind and said why should I?

I used to work for the province and they have a very clear conflict of interest policy which is "appearance of conflict" is the same as actual conflict.  Now, the Mayor isn't bound by the province but lets assume the City looks at conflict in the same way (at least they should), Sammy was constantly in conflict.  But he had people around him to protect him.  And for whatever reason he was a popular mayor so no one was going to challenge him.

Without posting rumours, I sort of wonder about this talk of him and the Caspian guy being "friends".  I hinted at this to someone I know who is in media and he said "I know I know".  So the thought is out there.  Ofcourse he can be friends or whatever with anyone he wants but there is speculation that he hides an aspect of his life which dovetails into the whole secrecy thing and where people are reluctant to shine a light on some of his relationships that could be cause for concern because it would paint people in a poor light to expose.  Remember how he went nuts when the Free Press reported on one of his divorces.