Matthew Machet left an Ottawa court free after Judge Hugh McLean briefed jurors on a breach of confidence in the Crown’s decision. The surprise development came on the fourth day of the expected four-week trial. Matchett was indicted in 2019 on charges of leaking documents related to a shipbuilding deal between the Quebec Shipyard Chatier Davie and the federal government. The leak allegedly occurred in 2015, when the newly elected Liberal government decided to suspend the finalization of a contract with Davie to lease a temporary supply ship for the Navy. The Crown case collapsed when his main witness, longtime lobbyist Brian Mercero, testified that he could not remember if Machet had given him a secret memo to the cabinet. Crown prosecutor Mark Covan’s decision to drop the charge today comes more than three years after the Crown case against Vice Admiral Mark Norman was dropped.
