The defence in the Michael Applebaum trial is questioning and testing the motives and credibility of the crown's key witness — Applebaum's former chief of staff.
Hugo Tremblay testified for the third day in Applebaum's trial on corruption, breach of trust and conspiracy charges.
The defence has been going through every one of the dozens of calls and texts between Tremblay and investigators in the weeks leading up to the wiretap operations involving Tremblay and Applebaum in 2013 just weeks before his arrest. Tremblay instigated most of the calls.
Defence lawyer Pierre Teasdale was notably honing in on the third and final wiretap operation in June 2013 where Tremblay didn't follow the script and the operation failed.
Teasdale zeroed in on Tremblay's testimony about his fragile state of mind at the time. Teasdale kept hammering away at Tremblay about why he continued to work with investigators and to call them practically every day - often a few times a day - when he said he was so uneasy, stressed and anxious about the whole affair, to the point where they referred Tremblay to a psychologist.
Tremblay came back each time with the same answer: that he had made a commitment, he had signed a consent form and he wanted to finish what he had started, "until the end."
Applebaum has steadfastly denied the charges that stem from real estate projects in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges/NDG when the accused was mayor there.