Ontario Provincial Police have charged two men in connection to an investigation into a $300 million procurement project at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

Police say members of Ontario’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launched a “lengthy” investigation into the St. Michael’s Hospital Redevelopment Project, first approved for procurement in 2011, and found evidence of fraud through the offering or receipt of secret commissions when the project was awarded in 2015.

The hospital and Infrastructure Ontario (IO) started the process of awarding contracts for the project in 2012.

John Aquino, 50, is charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000 and one charge related to the offering or receipt of secret commissions. Vasos Georgiou, 50, faces the same charges in addition to one count of fraud on government.

Court documents from a 2019 hearing at the Ontario Court of Appeal identify Aquino as president of Bondfield Construction Company and Georgiou as a senior executive at St. Michael’s Hospital who was on the committee that awarded a $300 million construction contract to Bondfield for a new critical care facility.

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