Controversy over ORNGE secrecy, big salaries, executive perks and mysterious cash payments boiled over Thursday, prompting provincial health minister Deb Matthews to call in police.

Detectives with the Ontario Provincial Police will focus their probe on a $6.7 million payment from an Italian helicopter firm and $1.2 million in loans and a cash advance to former ORNGE boss Dr. Chris Mazza.

A three-page summary report from provincial forensic accountants landed on Matthews’ desk late Wednesday. On Thursday morning, she called the police.

“I am terribly, terribly disappointed,” Matthews said in an interview.

When she initially asked ORNGE leaders last December to respond to a series of allegations in the Star, she said she “received clear assurances from senior leaders at ORNGE” that everything was fine.

Acting OPP Insp. Cathy Bell said the force will now take over from the provincial finance ministry, which sent a team of 32 forensic accountants into the Crystal Palace, the name ORNGE insiders have given their headquarters. Computers were seized, hard drives were copied and files were taken away. All of that will be handed over to detectives with the criminal investigation bureau.

“We are conducting an investigation into possible criminal actions on the part of ORNGE,” said Bell. “We do this at the request of government when they have reason to believe a criminal offence has occurred.”

Meanwhile, the government is working on tough new performance agreement — the document that controls how $150 million of Ontario taxpayer funds are spent at ORNGE. In a recent interview, Matthews told the Star that the original 2005 agreement was loose, and allowed problems to fester.

Very few of the top executives who presided over ORNGE when it was created in 2005 are left.

On Thursday, just before interim ORNGE boss Ron McKerlie received notification of the police probe, he called chief operating officer Tom Lepine into his office and told him his services were no longer required. In a note to staff, McKerlie said he wished Lepine well. Lepine, who made at least $350,000 last year (his full salary has never been disclosed), will receive a severance payment, an ORNGE official confirmed.

“I want to personally thank Tom for his years of service and dedication to the air ambulance program and his support to me over the past four weeks as we have worked together,” McKerlie wrote in a note to staff Thursday morning.

A former paramedic who rose under Mazza’s reign, Lepine presided over many of the decisions that landed ORNGE in hot water. He was involved in approving, at Mazza’s suggestion, the expensive medical interiors for the 12 new AgustaWestland helicopters, purchased at a cost of $144 million. Rank-and-file paramedics repeatedly told Lepine that the interior was too cluttered and that life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation could not be performed inflight. Lepine did not listen to paramedics, according to the Star’s interviews with more than 30 paramedics.

When the Star began investigating almost a year ago, Lepine and other ORNGE executives denied there were any problems with the chopper. After the stories hit the front page, ORNGE admitted there was a problem and that new management was working to fix it.

Lepine was also responsible, again apparently at Mazza’s direction, for a launch protocol that forced helicopters to stay grounded until ORNGE was absolutely sure that a chopper was needed. The Star profiled several cases where the late response (one to a bike accident, the other to a train accident) reduced paramedics’ ability to give life-saving care. The policy has been changed and a dozen cases are under investigation.

OPP detectives will not be dealing with response times, which are being looked into by ministry of health investigators.

Instead they will focus on payments related to a web of for-profit companies that Mazza created. The companies, ORNGE told the province, would earn revenue for the cash-strapped health ministry. Reading the fine print, the Star learned that the Mazza-controlled companies aimed to keep 97 per cent of gross revenues, leaving the rest for Ontario.

The seed money for ORNGE Peel (which became ORNGE Global) and other firms came from a $6.7 million payment from AgustaWestland, the firm that Mazza chose to provide ORNGE’s new choppers. A marketing services agreement struck between Mazza’s company and AgustaWestland called on the Mazza company to help the helicopter giant market itself in North America.

McKerlie, soon after he arrived at ORNGE, obtained the binder of marketing materials prepared for the $6.7 million and he determined it was not worth the money that was paid. AgustaWestland has not responded to interview requests from the Star.

The question detectives will have to answer is why was that money paid and where did it go.

Forensic auditors for the province unearthed payments of $1.2 million to Mazza over the past 18 months, on top of the $1.4 million paid to him annually. Some of the money was given as a housing loan, but with no interest payment agreement and no evidence that he has made payments on the loans. Money also flowed to him ($250,000) as an advance against a bonus and documents show it was paid for bringing in investors to ORNGE. No investors were secured, ORNGE officials say.

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Detectives will also probe to see if other former executives received questionable payments. Some certainly received perks. At a cost of $600,000, ORNGE funded executive MBAs for at least seven officials, including one who was quoted as saying the waffles in Belgium where she studied “were fantastic.”

After the Star received information suggesting payments to other executives, ORNGE said it was unable to provide information.

“We can’t confirm or deny your facts,” McKerlie said. “I can advise that if ORNGE did loan any money to its former employees, ORNGE would pursue its legal remedies to collect any debts which may be owing to the organization.”

ORNGE has already sent a lawyers’ letter to Mazza asking for the $1.2 million back.

Matthews said one of her great disappointments is that Rainer Beltzner, the ORNGE chair until recently, did not provide the type of oversight she expects from a board member. When she asked Beltzner and Lepine to answer questions last December, following the first revelations in the Star, Matthews said they were unhelpful.

“I was lied to on several occasions, on a variety of subjects, by the senior leadership at ORNGE including the chairman of the board,” Matthews said.

Beltzner, who races a Porsche in his spare time, is a chartered accountant with a long track record of working on government projects. He was managing director of the public sector division of KPMG for many years and worked on many projects with the ministry of health. He has recently served as the chair of the Humber College board of governors.

Attempts by the Star to interview Beltzner have been unsuccessful. A call to his home Thursday was not returned.

Other investigations into ORNGE continue. The ministry of natural resources, which has authority over aspects of aviation in Ontario, is probing the air ambulance service.

Provincial Auditor General Jim McCarter, who started a routine review of ORNGE early in 2011, is nearing the end of his value-for-money audit. McCarter was stonewalled by ORNGE officials last fall and Matthews had to step in and publicly tell them to cooperate.

In an interview Thursday, McCarter said his report is almost done and is headed for translation so that it can be read in French and English. He said he hopes it will be tabled in the provincial Legislature in late March.

“(The forensic investigators) have been turning over every leaf, looking at many of the issues we brought to their attention,” McCarter said.