OTTAWA—Bruce Carson, a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was charged with fraud by the RCMP on Friday.

Carson, who had previously been convicted of theft, attracted national attention after allegations surfaced that he lobbied the federal government for a water filtration company in 2010 in connection with a multi-million-dollar contract that would have led a to a commission being paid to his fiancée, a former escort.

When the allegations came out last year, Harper’s office referred them to the RCMP.

Carson left the Prime Minister’s office in 2009, but it is illegal for former political staffers to lobby government within five years after leaving its employ. He did not register as a lobbyist.

On Friday the RCMP charged Carson, 66, with one count of “fraud on the government, also known as influence peddling.”

In a short news release, the Mounties alleged Carson accepted “a commission for a third party in connection with a business matter relating to the government.”

“The investigation began in March 2011, after the RCMP received a referral from the Prime Minister’s Office,” the Mounties said.

RCMP Cpl. Lucy Shorey declined to provide more detail about the charge or the alleged commission, saying the matter is now before the courts.

Carson and his lawyer could not be reached for comment. But APTN, the aboriginal cable channel that aired the allegations of Carson’s activities last year, said Carson sent an apologetic text to friends and family shortly before the RCMP made the latest charge public Friday.

A spokesperson for Harper noted that as soon as the Carson allegations arose last year the Prime Minister referred them to the RCMP and the federal lobbying and ethics watchdogs.

“Any individual who doesn’t respect our laws must face their full force as well as the consequences that come with them,” said Andrew MacDougall, PMO director of communications.

NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus slammed the Conservatives, saying Carson’s activities were never mentioned by Harper until the media reported the allegations against him. He said Canadians need an explanation of why Carson was hired and what his activities were.

“This is a shot across the bow of the Prime Minister,” Angus told the Star. “Who else was involved? What was the role of the high-level people Carson talked to?

“The Conservatives came into power and set a bar for ethics and they bragged about the height of the bar. And they’ve been doing the limbo ever since.”

Carson, who was Harper’s chief policy analyst and troubleshooter from 2006 to 2008, has been immersed in other controversy. In 2009, officials in the PMO raised questions about a possible conflict of interest involving Carson and the Canada School of Energy and Environment. Carson was executive director of the school but was briefly back in the PMO when the school was seeking a $25-million grant from the Natural Resources department. Carson said it was a mixup in timing.

Opposition parties have criticized Harper for hiring Carson, who had been convicted in the 1980s of forging cheques. The Prime Minister said he was aware of that fraud conviction but when it came out that Carson had another conviction for fraud in 1990, Harper said he would not have accepted Carson in his office had he known about the later conviction.

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“Mr. Harper seems to have a penchant for surrounding himself with shady characters,” Liberal ethics critic Scott Andrews said, referring to Conservative cabinet ministers who have been under fire lately in controversial ethics cases. “If we are the company we keep, I would strongly suggest Mr. Harper re-evaluate who he chooses for his inner circle.”

Carson is scheduled to appear in an Ottawa court on Sept. 10 on the influence-peddling charge.

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