‘He almost pulled this off,’ Crown says
Judge hears closing arguments in trial of Toronto officer charged with stealing from dead people
A Toronto cop counted on his position within the Toronto Police Service to put himself above suspicion when he committed an “unconscionable breach of the public’s trust” by stealing credit cards and a luxury watch from dead people, abusing police databases and possessing a stolen vehicle, a prosecutor said.
Const. Boris Borissov’s testimony at his trial reveals that he’s “not very good at practising the art of deception,” Crown attorney Samuel Walker said in his closing address Tuesday.
Nonetheless, “he almost pulled this off.”
Borissov has pleaded not guilty to 15 charges, including theft, breach of trust, obstruction of justice through falsifying a police report, possession of property obtained by crime exceeding $5,000, and fraudulently obtaining a computer service.
In her closing, defence lawyer Joanne Mulcahy argued the prosecution failed to prove Borissov is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It “makes no sense whatsoever” for him to steal credit cards from a missing person, knowing the cards would be flagged by police, she said.
“So much of this case is about suspicion, and suspicion is not proved beyond reasonable doubt.”
Here’s what Ontario Court Judge Mary Misener has heard at trial:
When a $14 charge came in from a Mississauga butcher shop in February 2022, Toronto police investigators initially thought they had a break in their missing person case.
But they later found the missing man had already died by suicide; instead, security footage revealed his TD card had been used by a friend of Borissov, driving the officer’s own car.
A day earlier, Borissov — one of the cops assigned to the investigation — had searched the deceased man’s apartment and found the card in his jacket on a Toronto beach.
Later, when the butcher shop transaction was flagged by the bank, Borissov volunteered to pick up the video evidence. He then didn’t identify his own car or his friend Zvezdomir Mollov in his police report, which the Crown says he falsified.
In a later search of Mollov’s home, police found other items belonging to the deceased man — including an American Express card and a cheque from HSBC. Mollov was charged alongside Borissov in 2022, but those charges were later withdrawn. Reached by the Star, Mollov’s lawyer Peter Thorning said he had no comment on the case.
When asked by his lawyer to explain how the cards ended up in Mollov’s possession, Borissov said they must have fallen out of his pocket while he was in Mollov’s car on a sandwich run.
After Borissov was arrested in April 2022, police found a photo on his phone of another credit card, this time belonging to a woman whose death Borissov had been assigned to investigate in 2020.
The BMO card was never found. In the six days after the woman’s death, it was used at the LCBO, Freedom Mobile, Home Depot, Domino’s Pizza and Starbucks, among other stores.
Borissov denied stealing the card or giving it to someone else but testified under cross-examination that he did possess both cards in the days before they were used.
The missing man with the TD card also had an extensive luxury watch collection he kept in his bedroom; Borissov saw it for the first time while searching the apartment with another officer and the man’s brother, Amul Kumar. Kumar testified that a luxury Swiss watch went missing from his brother’s collection — a TAG Heuer Grand Prix De Monaco.
Borissov’s search history shows that he looked online for the same model of watch that day. A search of Borissov’s phone also revealed blurry images of a watch, which Walker argues is “similar to the model in question.”
At trial, two construction workers testified that they were separately approached by Borissov trying to sell them the same model of watch. Previously, the men had bought other goods from Borissov, including a replica luxury watch, cigars and a Cuban cancer “vaccine.”
“Brand new, original one, no box. I am asking for $9,000,” reads a text message Borissov sent one of the men, along with an online listing for the watch. Borissov denied taking the watch, which was never recovered.
Over two years, Borissov ran 12 searches on internal police databases to “check up on” vehicles owned by Mollov and another a man wanted on fraud charges.
Borissov says he first began the searches after Mollov approached him about starting a car export or car rental business.
“I had to make sure that this would not bring disgrace to the Toronto police,” Borissov explained.
In cross-examination, Walker questioned Borissov’s motive, saying: “It looks awfully like some kind of stolen car ring — did that occur to you?”
“Absolutely not,” Borissov replied. Two of the cars Borissov had searched — a Honda Pilot and an Acura — were in his own possession at the time of his arrest.
Honda Canada attempted to repossess the Honda Pilot in January 2021, but the car was found in the underground lot, inaccessible to a tow truck — so a bailiff put a tracking device on it. That tracker was recovered days later, nearly 300 kilometres away in western New York.
The Crown argues Borissov was driving the Pilot, which Borissov denies. When Borissov searched police databases for the car in February 2021, the report listed it as stolen.
Borissov said he gave the Pilot to his wife in January 2022. Upon Borissov’s arrest, police found a GPS jammer plugged into the cigarette lighter. Borissov said the device was in the car when he got it from Mollov.
He has been suspended with pay since his arrest and is still facing professional misconduct charges.
Misener is set to deliver her verdict on May 8.