Claude Paquin, a man from Quebec who was falsely convicted of a double murder and later acquitted after 41 years, has come to an agreement worth millions of dollars with Montreal and the provincial government.
The settlement was jointly announced by the three parties on Friday, aiming to help Mr. Paquin move on from the challenging period in his life without a lengthy trial scheduled for this fall.
In 1983, Paquin was found guilty of two first-degree murder charges related to the deaths of Ronald Bourgouin and Sylvie Revah, a couple killed in 1978 in the Laurentians. After spending 18 years in prison, he was granted full parole in 2001 under strict conditions that lasted for the next 23 years.
In 2024, the federal justice minister ordered a retrial, stating that new information suggested a probable “miscarriage of justice.” Subsequently, on November 6, 2024, Paquin, now 83, was acquitted.
Paquin credited his lawyers from Projet Innocence Québec for his acquittal, highlighting the crucial role they played. The case against him heavily relied on the testimony of Bernard Provençal, a prominent police informant, whose credibility was questioned over time by Projet Innocence Québec.
Represented by Woods LLP lawyers, Paquin filed a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit in Quebec Superior Court in May 2025 against the City of Montreal and the Attorney General of Quebec. The lawsuit alleged that police and the prosecution were aware as early as 1983 that the informant’s testimony was false and that any physical evidence linking Paquin to the crime had been tampered with or fabricated.
The lawsuit described the case as more than just a miscarriage of justice, portraying it as a narrative of a life taken away, with an existence stripped away beyond just prison walls. It emphasized Paquin’s prolonged unjust deprivation of liberty, characterized as the lengthiest documented in Quebec.
Although the lawsuit sought damages of over $89 million, the actual settlement amount remains undisclosed due to a confidentiality agreement. Since the lawsuit was settled out of court, the claims were not subjected to legal scrutiny, and the involved parties have chosen to refrain from further comments.