We now know what happened to Rahim Jaffer, the husband of Helena Guergis, the cabinet minister dumped by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The truth has been coming out in dribs and drabs in court in Ottawa this week.
After a fancy dinner in Toronto on the night of September 10, 2009, which the Toronto Star newspaper said included big-breasted prostitutes, Jaffer left for home in his car.
But just outside the city he was stopped by an Ontario Provincial Police constable and charged with speeding, impaired driving, and possession of cocaine.
According to the report of the Constable Kimberley Stapleton, he had twice the amount of alcohol permissible in his blood, was traveling at 140 km per hour, twice the speed limit, and had cocaine in the pocket of his jacket.
Convictions on all those charges, according to Harper's tough new laws, would easily have earned a little jail time.
But things took a different back at the station.
The chief prosecutor of Ontario took over the case, rather than the local crown prosecutor, and the charges were reduced without the chief prosecutor discussing the case with the local prosecutor or the Constable Kimberly Stapleton.
On March 9, 2010, Jaffer pleaded guilty to a single reduced charge of "reckless" driving and was sentenced to only a $ 500 fine. No prison for charges of impaired driving. No jail time for possession of cocaine. No jail time for speeding.
Constable Kimberley Stapleton, who had arrested Jaffer, was called up and told by no less than Julian Fantino, the Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police himself, to stay quiet about the case.
Soon after, the same Fantino was offered the conservative candidacy in the Vaughan riding north of Toronto.
Fantino won the seat and Harper appointed Fantino the Associate Minister of Defense in charge of the fighter jets F-35.
Today former Commissioner Fantino is still a minister in the Harper cabinet at a salary of $ 235 000 per year.
It's nice to be conservative.
