As the Gomery Inquiry finishes hearing witnesses, one of the ad men charged has pleaded guilty to 15 of 18 fraud charges.

Paul Coffin was head of the Montreal firm Communication Coffin. He was arrested and charged in 2002. His trial was set for June 6th.

Each of the charges can lead to 10 years in jail, but it is doubtful Coffin will be incarcerated long. Sentencing arguments will begin in August.

At the inquiry, Coffin helped shed light on alleged bureaucratic collusion in a scheme to create a lengthy trail of falsified paperwork and inflated bills for several files, including Jean Chretien’s Clarity Act on Quebec secession.

Coffin testified that his firm earned $86,500 while fronting for Clarity Act work actually done by Montreal-based BCP, a firm with close ties to the federal and Quebec Liberals.

Coffin has also said he fronted a Health Canada ad contract for a second agency, Gingko Group, and took a commission even though Gingko did all of the work.

He told the inquiry he had a close friendship with Guite and once hired the bureaucrat as a consultant following Guite’s retirement.

Coffin singled out Guite and the bureaucrat’s assistant, Huguette Tremblay, as participants in a scheme to top off production-fee budgets for a number of sponsorship files from 1997 to 1999.

He told the sponsorship inquiry that Guite asked him to bill for hours worked even though Coffin’s firm didn’t keep time sheets.

Coffin and fellow ad man Jean Lafleur have both said Public Works officials approved, and even encouraged, the massive fees each agency took for managing $250 million in sponsorship deals from 1997 to 2003.

In many cases the middlemen couldn’t say what they did to earn the fees. Sometimes they billed for entertaining clients at hockey games or simply passing along paperwork and cheques.

Coffin himself admitted he sometimes billed taxpayers for work done by his wife, who was not on his payroll.