Thetford Mines businessman and automobile collector Roger Demers is accused of fraud at the expense of the Société d’assurance automobile du Québec.
Posted at 4:52pm
He appeared at Thetford Mines courthouse on Friday morning where he pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Demers, known for his vintage and exotic car collection, is accused of wrongfully receiving income replacement benefits between November 2004 and September 2018, prosecutor on the case, Me Nathalie, told La Presse Chouinard. The amount of the alleged fraud was not mentioned in the short appearance.
Mr. Demers is being represented by Montreal attorney Richard Généreux of Évolex.
Last May, Mr. Demers was found guilty of sexually touching a minor. He appealed against this verdict. The date for the hearing before the Court of Appeal has not yet been set, his lawyer in the case, Me David Pétranic, told La Presse. Mr. Demers asked the Supreme Court to order a new trial in the case.
Mr Demers was also charged in another case of sexually touching a woman in her 30s. The defense has filed a motion to stay the hearing, which is scheduled to take place at Thetford Mines in May, Me Pétranic said.
Mr. Demers had gained some notoriety in the 2010s when he sponsored a Quebec Automobile Museum that would have been funded by the Treasury and housed about fifty of his approximately 500 cars in the collection. Mr. Demers claimed that many of his cars belonged to celebrities.
The project had attracted the attention of some MPs and mayors, but none went further after Mr Demers’ claims about the provenance of several of those cars were challenged on these sites in 2014.