Killer’s widow compensated for brother’s conduct as executor
The brother of child killer Andrew Osidacz has been ordered to personally pay his sister-in-law more than $150,000 in legal costs for his “reprehensible” conduct as the executor of his dead brother’s estate.
Justice Thomas Lofchik of Hamilton blasted Michael Osidacz in a scathing decision released recently for his “reckless and egregious conduct” over a 10-year period as he tried to prevent Julie Craven from gaining access to her estranged husband’s estate.
During a court-ordered visit in 2006, Andrew Osidacz stabbed his eight-year-old son Jared to death. He then drove to Craven’s Brantford home covered in blood, told her what he had done and held a knife to her throat until he was shot dead by police.
Earlier this year, Craven was awarded $565,000 from the estate, including aggravating and punitive damages.
The case had dragged on for a decade and Michael Osidacz had been using money from the estate to fund the litigation against Craven, throwing up “every conceivable roadblock and unnecessary defence” possible, according to Lofchik.
“Michael Osidacz was acting not as an estate trustee but personally, in carrying out a vendetta against Julie Craven in order to limit any compensation she received from the estate,” Lofchik wrote in his decision.
The judge called Michael Osidacz’s actions 10 years of “harassment” to deny Craven’s legitimate claims for justice and rightful compensation.
“He subjected an impoverished, grieving mother who had just nearly been killed by the perpetrator of the heinous murder of her eightyear-old son to a litigation ‘strategy’ of denial, deflection and ultimately blame that had no basis in the will, the evidentiary record or reasonableness,” Lofchik determined.
“I find that his reckless, totally irrational and totally unreasonable conduct and personal confrontations with the plaintiff rise to the level of ‘reprehensible’ conduct.”
Osidacz attempted to portray himself as “a person of limited means” as he fought against having to repay the legal costs, but Lofchik wasn’t buying the argument.
The judge noted Osidacz was forced to reveal during the trial that he lived in a very large, mortgagefree house in Brantford built with his own money.
Osidacz then had to admit he owns seven rental properties, “five of which were mortgage free and had been for more than 10 years,” Lofchik wrote.
Lofchik ordered Michael Osidacz to personally pay Craven $141,310 plus HST in costs and another $10,000 in disbursements.
Attempts to reach Osidacz for comment through his lawyer were unsuccessful.