Pamela Wallin's Senate expenses for board-related trips being investigated

 The RCMP are investigating 150 Senate expense claims made by Pamela Wallin, including

 those for 24 trips related to her work on corporate boards, according to documents filed in court.

The documents, released Monday at the Ottawa courthouse, were filed by the RCMP to seek more records for their investigation, including documents from two companies on whose boards Wallin served.

Press continua a leggere, or Press Take and Continuos Article.

The records, including a document known as information to obtain a production order (ITO), were filed Jan. 27, 2015, suggesting the RCMP are continuing to investigate Wallin's spending.

RCMP Cpl. Rudy Exantus filed the ITO to seek records from Gluskin Sheff & Associates and Porter Airlines, where Wallin served as a board member.

Exantus wrote in the filing that he believes Wallin, between Jan. 26, 2009, and Oct. 3, 2012, committed breach of trust and defrauded the Senate of an amount exceeding $5,000.

Wallin was named to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Jan. 2, 2009, according to the parliamentary website.

Wallin filed 246 travel claims in the time examined. Wallin left the Conservative caucus in May 2013, as controversy built over spending by her and senators Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb.

Of those, Exantus said 150 expense claims are "suspicious" and that the investigation into those claims continues.

Assistants thought Wallin lived in Toronto

In a statement, Wallin's lawyer told CBC News that there was no possible advantage for Wallin in claiming the board expenses.

"It was the policy of those companies on whose board Senator Wallin sat to reimburse her for expenses for travelling to Ottawa, to Toronto back to Ottawa, to attend board meetings or other corporate events," Terrence O'Sullivan said.

"Through administrative errors some of those trips were charged to the Senate rather than to those companies. There was no advantage or possible advantage to Senator Wallin in so doing, since those companies would have paid for those trips. This was fully explained nearly two years ago, when after the mistake was discovered the money was repaid to the Senate by Senator Wallin."

One of the revelations in the court records is that two of Wallin's executive assistants between 2009 and 2012 thought her primary residence was in Toronto, not Wadena, Sask.

Shelly Clark-Chenette was Wallin's assistant from January 2009 to August 2009 and told the RCMP she felt Wallin believed she was on some boards because she was a senator, thus making those commitments Senate-related.

Clark-Chenette told the RCMP that Wallin would get upset if she questioned Wallin's expenses, the court documents say.

"At times Senator Wallin would get mad, telling Shelly Clark-Chenette something to the effect of 'do it, just get it done, do it anyway,'" Exantus wrote in the ITO.

The Senate covers travel between Ottawa and a senator's primary residence if the residence is more than 100 kilometres away from the National Capital Region of Ottawa and Gatineau, Que. Senators are supposed to have a primary residence in the province from which they are appointed, but Wallin isn't the only senator to have had questions raised about that. Duffy, Brazeau and Harb are accused of wrongly claiming living expenses for their Ottawa and Gatineau homes.

Trials approaching 

Among the documents detailing the RCMP's probe into the suspended senator's expenses is a 2013 letter from her lawyer explaining why Wallin provided two different calendars to investigators. That letter was previously made public when Wallin appeared before a Senate committee.

Wallin, Duffy and Brazeau were suspended from the Senate more than a year ago over concerns about their expenses.

Harb, a former Liberal senator, retired in the wake of an audit report into his expenses.

Brazeau and Harb have been charged with one count each of fraud and breach of trust, while Duffy faces 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery related to a $90,000 payment from the prime minister's former chief of staff to repay Duffy's ineligible expenses. The three trials are all expected to get underway later this year.

Thousands repaid

Wallin, who has not been charged, has already repaid $154,191.29 to the Senate, according to the RCMP's court filing.

She told a Senate committee looking into her expenses in August, 2013 that she regretted paying the money back.

"I've paid all of the money that I don't believe that I owe, I paid it all back. And I guess it's one of the things I kind of regret. I thought I would do the right thing," she said.

"It's given some people an excuse to say, 'You must be guilty because you paid it back.'"

Harb was required to pay back even more — $189,923 plus interest, according to parliamentary public accounts. Brazeau's paycheque was being garnisheed until he was suspended without pay. He still owes $50,140, with interest accumulating.