Many people probably didn’t think twice last week when news broke of yet another Montreal-area mayor resigning in disgrace because, well, it seems to happen a lot these days.
But if you tuned out news of Laval’s interim mayor Alexandre Duplessis’s resignation, you missed a fantastic story.
Duplessis had only been mayor since November, chosen by fellow city councillors to replace Gilles Vaillancourt, who stepped down following allegations of decades-long widespread corruption in awarding construction contracts. Duplessis’s downfall, however, didn’t come as a result of corruption but rather a good old-fashioned sex scandal.
Duplessis stepped down suddenly Friday after it came to light he had allegedly tried to solicit a prostitute and refused to pay the bill afterwards.
Apparently his worship sent a series of text messages to an escort service asking for a very specific type of companion: “30-year-old, 5-foot-8, 130-pound, 34 DD, blond with green eyes,” according to the Globe and Mail.
“Will she be dressed sexily? High heels?” the text messages read. “Can I wear women’s underwear?”
The head of the escort service shared some 110 text messages with TVA, which she alleges all came from the 42-year-old politician. They asked for the escort to bring two outfits; the client apparently wanted to dress in women’s clothing and hang out as though on a girls’ night out. There were also requests for makeup and “beautiful thigh-high high-heeled boots.”
None of this would have ever been found out if the bill had simply been paid. But apparently the client didn’t want to pay the escort — which is always a bad idea.
What came next was a number of attempts to claim the outstanding money, which seemed to increase after the escort and an associate realized the client was mayor of Laval. Apparently unsatisfied with the service he had received, Duplessis filed an extortion complaint with police and maintains he never asked for anything sexual.
The head of the escort service also says the women were only trying to get $150 for the hour the escort had spent at Duplessis’s cottage in the Laurentian mountains, so it doesn’t sound like there was any sex exchanged for money.
This might suggest that Laval’s mayor was forced to resign simply because he likes to engage in a little weekend cross-dressing, which really isn’t that crazy, is it? I mean, worse than two decades of rampant corruption?
Anyway, Duplessis stepped down Friday afternoon mere hours after saying he wouldn’t resign “just because of an extortion attempt.” And thus we have another chapter in the ongoing saga of Canada’s scandal-plagued mayors.
Pay your prostitutes, people.