Receipts for credit card purchases in the name of the defendant, Paul Zaidan, showed that the card was used to purchase chains, locks, ties and cables weeks before the kidnapping.
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Credit card locks, chains and ties were purchased in the name of the man accused of kidnapping the chairman of Chez Cora a few weeks before the kidnapping took place.
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Paul Zaidan, 52, is accused of kidnapping Nicholas Tsouflidis on March 8, 2017, holding him against his will for hours, and trying to extort $ 11 million from Tsouflidis’s mother, Cora Tsouflidis, founder of the chain of restaurants.
Zaidan owned a Chez Cora franchise on Nuns’ Island that the division led by Nicholas Tsouflidis decided to close, a few months after opening, because it violated the criteria expected of the company’s franchises.
On Thursday, the jury in the Laval courthouse heard testimony from Étienne Fortin, manager of the Home Depot at Marché Central in Montreal. Fortin said that in 2017, two police officers investigating the kidnapping asked him to trace two receipts for purchases made on different days during February 2017 on Zaidan’s Visa card.
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Fortin, who now runs a Home Depot in Trois-Rivières, deciphered the complicated notations found on both receipts.
On February 7, 2017, card purchases totaling $ 72.88 were made. Six days later, $ 78.86 worth of items were purchased with the same card.
While it was clearly stated that the locks were purchased on both days, the other items on the receipts were recorded in a way that only a store employee could recognize.
Fortin said he used codes printed on the receipts and compared them to items in Home Depot’s inventory. Items included a pack of four master locks, 15 and 12 feet of chain, a pair of pliers, 50 feet of “aviation cable” and cable ties.
When Tsouflidis testified at the beginning of the trial, he said that he wore a tie when they grabbed him outside his home and put him in the trunk of a vehicle. He also said that his kidnappers bound him with chains while he was being held against his will in the basement of a house.
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Another witness who testified Thursday morning was Daniel Fortin, a Sûreté du Québec officer who was called in after a bystander found Tsouflidis in a ditch in Laval the day after his abduction. When Tsouflidis testified, he said his kidnappers left him in a ditch after realizing he had managed to make a 911 call on his cell phone while he was in the trunk of the vehicle while driving away from his home in Mirabel.
“They asked me to be the eyes of the court,” the SQ officer said, explaining how he was assigned to document visible injuries on Tsouflidis.
“He showed us his hands, both sides, and he had injuries (on both wrists),” Fortin said as photos of the injuries were shown to the jury. He said that a mark was easily visible on Tsouflidis’s face and that he could see the adhesive tape residue on Tsouflidis’s hands while taking the photos.
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Reference-montrealgazette.com