Arthur Porter's right-hand man pleads guilty to multiple charges in MUHC fraud case

One of the defendants in the alleged $22.5 million McGill University Health Centrefraud case, Yana Elbaz, pleadedguilty Monday to a series ofcharges, including breach of trust, conspiracy and recycling the proceeds of crime.

Elbaz was the ex-right-hand man of Arthur Porter, the disgraced former director of the MUHC who died in Panama in 2015 and was the prime suspect in what is considered one of the biggest corruption cases in Canadian history.

Like Porter, Elbaz was charged in connection with an alleged bribery scheme involving the $1.3-billioncontract to build the MUHC superhospital.

The Crown and the defence made a joint suggestion of 39 months in prison.

With the guilty plea,Elbaz is admitting he accepted $10 million in bribes in exchange for providing inside information that helped engineering giant SNC-Lavalin secure the contract to build the hospital.

Two others have already pleaded guilty in the case, but former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime is still awaiting trial.

It's alleged Duhaime was involved in paying a total $22.5 million in bribes to secure the contract. His trial is set to begin in January.