OTTAWA—Mike Duffy’s fitness workouts with his personal trainer never really changed after he became a senator but the coach’s job description — now called “consulting” — did and so did the way Duffy paid him, a judge heard Thursday.

The fitness trainer, a parliamentary intern and a makeup artist all testified at Duffy’s fraud trial that they were paid by the broadcaster-turned-politician through a company called Maple Ridge Media and its successor — owned by a Duffy friend — for their services.

Even, as in the volunteer intern Ashley Cain’s case, where the $500 payment was not demanded or expected.

Even, as in the case of makeup artist Jacqueline Lambert, where Duffy had previously been told that a $300 makeup session was “not an expenditure that is allowed” by Senate guidelines.

Even, as in the case of the fitness trainer, Mike Croskery, where his more than $3,000-a-year bill was for work and conversation no different than before Duffy became a senator, no extra research was done and no reports were produced.

Croskery testified he supervised Duffy in one-hour sessions as the senator sweat it out for 10 minutes on a bike, did light stretching and worked with resistance bands. They often chatted about health matters. Over time, their chats turned into talk about a “project” Duffy called the Age Wave. Croskery said Duffy was interested in boosting health information for baby boomers, perhaps by putting out a book, website or CD.

“The way it was structured, because he knew the exercise routine, and it wasn’t like he was really out of breath, it was easy to carry on a conversation about the topics we wanted to talk about,” Croskery told Judge Charles Vaillancourt as Duffy listened, stroking his cheek with his thumb.

Yet the trainer said he did no extra work for the consulting sessions, brought no notes, produced no reports for the senator, and had no “expertise” in demographics nor the “legalities” around distribution or copyright matters, although he had published a couple of weight training handbooks. Duffy didn’t write down notes as they “combined” fitness workouts with consulting.

In the end, Croskery testified, the Age Wave went nowhere. It didn’t appear to have “any traction,” he said, suggesting the senator’s interests drifted to other matters like bullying.

Before Duffy’s Senate appointment, he paid his trainer $3,855 in 2008 via cheques from his own account, Croskery said. In 2009, Duffy’s first year as a senator, Duffy travelled a lot and Croskery had a health issue that reduced their time together.

In 2010, however, at Duffy’s instruction, Croskery says he billed for the basement coaching sessions differently. He invoiced Maple Ridge Media and its successor Ottawa ICF, owned by Gerald Donohue. (Documents show Duffy awarded a total of $65,000 in contracts to the two companies for “speech writing” and other “editorial” and research services.)

Croskery was paid more than $10,100 over three years through those companies for services the Crown alleges were merely personal expenditures that Duffy could not have expensed otherwise to the senate — a way to put Duffy’s expenses outside the senate’s oversight.

Assistant Crown attorney Jason Neubauer asked Croskery “why put consulting on” his invoices. Croskery answered: “That’s what he wanted me to put on it.”

Duffy’s lawyer Don Bayne tried to paint Croskery’s advice as valuable, given his background coaching other elite amateur and professional athletes. Bayne got Croskery to agree “actual work” was done in the “combined” sessions and no money kicked back to Duffy.

Bayne took the same tack — actual work in line with the senator’s duties was done — with the two other witnesses.

Freelance makeup artist Jacqueline Lambert testified she was hired by Duffy after his senate appointment: first for a March 2009 official photo shoot, later for a May 2010 event with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Duffy acted as host-moderator for a televised Q&A session between Harper and selected youth prior to the June G8. Lambert applied makeup to Harper that day too.

She said her $300 minimum half-day fee wouldn’t have increased for having powdered them both, and understood the Maple Ridge Media cheque for $300 dated May 25, 2010 “was for the job I did for Sen. Duffy and the Prime Minister.”

A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office denied any “knowledge” that taxpayers’ money was used for Harper’s makeup — although it is clear through documents and Lambert’s testimony that Duffy’s senate research budget was the source of funds for payment.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“We have no knowledge of the invoice in question. We did not charge taxpayers for the PM’s preparation for this event and had no reason to believe anyone else would do so,” Harper spokesman Stephen Lecce wrote in an email.

Crown evidence shows the senate had disallowed a Duffy claim for Lambert’s makeup services a year earlier. An April 9, 2009 letter from the Senate administration advised Duffy her invoice for the March 2009 photo shoot would not be processed because makeup service “is not an expenditure that is allowed” by Senate guidelines.

Ashley Cain, an unpaid intern in Duffy’s Parliament Hill office, received a $500 cheque from Maple Ridge Media in May 2010 despite never having signed a contract, she testified — money the defence characterized as a modest sum for 60-70 hours work.

“I assumed it was for my work,” Cain said, adding Duffy had praised her performance and suggested he would try to find some money for her.

With files from Joanna Smith

Read more about: