Former Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne wept and begged to be sprung from the Innes Rd. jail on Tuesday where he remains locked up for defrauding the Senate.

Shuffling into the damp chill of the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre’s worship room with only an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit for warmth, he settled gingerly into a white plastic lawn chair to face the two-member Ontario Parole Board panel.

Fiercely loyal wife Carmen Robichaud at his side, Lavigne had to convince both panellists he was worthy of parole.

But after deliberating, they told him they were unable to reach an agreement — and so for now, he will remain incarcerated.

Robichaud leapt to her feet, livid.

“He’s not healthy,” she said in an icy blast of scornful French.

“I want him to come home.”

“I don’t understand.”

Lavigne, haggard and defeated, tried to lead Robichaud away.

“That’s how it works, he murmured.

Lavigne had been sentenced in 2011 to six months in jail for fraud over $5,000 after Judge Robert Smith convicted him of fiddling his travel expenses.

He also got a consecutive six-month conditional sentence — essentially house arrest — for breach of trust after Lavigne used his Senate-paid aide to cut down trees on the senator’s Wakefield property.

An appeal, ultimately unsuccessful, meant he did not start serving his sentence until June.

Showing flashes of his old fire, Lavigne insisted he’d done nothing wrong.

“If there were mistakes, they weren’t intentional,” he said in French. “I did what the accounting department said we were supposed to do.”

He also insisted that his aide cut down the trees on his own time, not the Senate’s.

“It was his own initiative,” Lavigne said.

But his braggadocio was short lived.

Telling the panel about a litany of health problems — and jail staff only treat him when he’s handcuffed — Lavigne began to weep.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “I’m 67 years old. I’m not healthy.”

“I just want to go home so I can recover my health. ... I need to be home, I need to be with my wife.”

Robichaud took up his defence.

“I will be there for him,” she said. “I still do not understand why he is here.”

“I do not understand how you can destroy someone’s life.”

Because the panel couldn’t reach a unanimous decision, a new panel will be convened in the near future to hear Lavigne plead his case anew.

tony.spears@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @ottawasuntony