‘Middleman’ pleads not guilty to murder

Home builder Dmitri Kossyrine did not pull the trigger that killed Toronto multimillionaire businessman Glen Davis in a midtown underground parking lot on May 18, 2007, a jury heard Tuesday.

Nor did he order the hit on the prolific philanthropist and conservationist.

Kossyrine, 34, was, however, the “middleman” in the murder-for-hire plot who got people to carry out the task, Hank Goody told a Superior Court jury Tuesday during his opening address.

Kossyrine has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. He is the only one on trial although three men were involved in the planned and deliberate execution, Goody said.

Marshall Ross, Davis’s godson and favourite relative, was on “top in the chain of responsibility.”

Ross wanted his benefactor killed believing it would let him off the hook for an outstanding $2 million loan Davis approved for Ross’s home renovation business.

“He (Ross) wanted Glen Davis dead but he was not about to do it himself,” said Goody, who described Ross’s attempts to conceal his financial mess.

So Ross turned to Kossyrine, his most frequent building subcontractor and owner of D.K. Custom Homes. Kossyrine had never met Davis nor did he have any business involvement with his company, N.M. Davis Corp.

Ross provided Kossyrine with photographs of Davis and his SUV, as well as details about some of his routines, the prosecutor said.

Kossyrine asked a roofer from his job sites to kill Davis. He gave him a down payment and guided tour of places Davis frequented including Penryn House, the mansion and head office of Davis Corp, near Bayview Ave. and York Mills Rd., and Davis’s home, Goody said.

The roofer enlisted his cousin and the pair followed Davis to his office on Dec. 21, 2005. Davis was attacked outside by a man swinging a baseball bat but survived. No one was caught and Davis had no idea who was behind the assault.

Seventeen months later, still deeply indebted to Davis Corp., Ross once again asked Kossyrine to hire a killer and “get the job done right.”

“Glen Davis was still alive and so too was the plan,” Goody said.

At first, Kossyrine approached a construction worker and friend, Jesse Smith, and offered him $100,000 and a yearly salary to kill Davis. But Smith turned down the offer, not because it offended his morality but because he didn’t think he’d get away with it.

In the end, Ivgeny “Eugene” Vorobiov, Kossyrine’s close friend and right-hand man, agreed to kill Davis for a substantial sum of money, court was told.

Vorobiov shot Davis, 66, twice as he walked to his vehicle in the underground parking lot of an office building at Eglinton Ave. E. and Mount Pleasant Rd.

Goody said jurors will hear evidence of cellphone records of numerous calls made by Ross, Vorobiov and Kossyrine on the day of the murder. They will also hear secretly recorded conversations Kossyrine had with Ross, Vorobiov and his office assistant that reveal him “scheming and fabricating” evidence to cover up the crime, Goody said.

The trial in front of Ontario Superior Court Justice Eugene Ewaschuk resumes Wednesday and is expected to last six weeks.