Ex turned sleuth to expose alleged fraud
Woman contacted police after receiving suspicious mail linked to dead man’s estate, trial hears
Her ex-boyfriend, Robert Konashewych, was a Toronto police officer, but Candice Dixon did the initial detective work leading to his arrest after mail arrived at their condo addressed to him and relating to a dead man’s estate, court heard Friday.
After the couple broke up and he moved out of their condo, Dixon opened a letter from a bank addressed to Konashewych relating to the Estate of Heinz Sommerfeld. When she asked him about the letter, Konashewych made a “Heinz ketchup joke” and said the letter was sent in error, Dixon testified Friday at his jury trial for stealing $800,000 from Sommerfeld’s estate using a will alleged to be fake.
Konashewych, who is on paid suspension from his post at 14 Division, has pleaded not guilty to fraud over $5,000. His alleged accomplice, Adellene Balgobin, who worked for the government agency that manages the financial affairs of people incapable of doing so for themselves, has also pleaded not guilty to fraud and breach of trust.
Sommerfeld, an elderly man with Alzheimer’s, became one of Balgobin’s clients in 2017 — at the same time she was having a romantic relationship with Konashewych — while still living with Dixon.
After opening a second similarly addressed letter, this time sent from a law firm, Dixon sent a copy to her lawyer, who subsequently obtained the Superior Court file containing Konashewych’s April 2018 application to be certified as the trustee of Sommerfeld’s estate. That file included a will naming him as Sommerfeld’s beneficiary and estate trustee. By the end of 2018, the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPGT) had transferred Sommerfeld’s estate in the amount of $834,351.55 to a bank account owned by Konashewych.
Balgobin had some involvement in the handling of the Sommerfeld estate, including signing an affidavit where she compared the signature on the 2006 will — naming Konashewych as the sole beneficiary — to Sommerfeld’s identification she had access to at OPGT.
Dixon testified Friday she took that file to Toronto police in March 2019, explaining she had never heard of Sommerfeld or his inheritance during her seven-year relationship with Konashewych.
“Did Rob ever tell you about befriending a much older man,” prosecutor Sam Walker asked Dixon. “No,” Dixon said.
“Did he (Konashewych) ever tell you about a much older man signing a will giving him his entire inheritance when he was in his early 20s?” Walker asked.
No again, Dixon said.
In 2005, the year Konashewych says he met Sommerfeld, he was 22. Sommerfeld, who never married and had no kids, turned 66 in May of that year. He died in 2017 in a nursing home at the age of 77. Prior to Konashewych stepping forward with the will, the OPGT had no record of one existing.
(On Thursday, the jury heard that Sommerfeld moved into a Mississauga house he bought in 1995, where he remained until 2008, when his dementia worsened and he was apprehended under the Mental Health Act.)
Dixon and Konashewych began dating in November 2011, and moved into a condo they purchased in 2014 and lived in until November 2018. Much of the testimony over the last two days has focused on Dixon discovering Konashewych’s infidelity with Balgobin.
On Friday, Walker asked Dixon about what she knew about Konashewych’s financial well-being. She offered that her signature was needed so that they could both share a line of credit, given that he already owed about $75,000 on two lines of credit.
Dixon recalled her ex once asking her “how many millions does it take to be a millionaire?” When she told him “one,” he responded “then I’m a millionaire,” she testified.
The trial resumes in Superior Court on Monday.
Konashewych is on trial for stealing $800,000 from Heinz Sommerfeld’s estate using a will alleged to be fake