A Toronto cop has been convicted of fabricating a will so he could gain an estate worth over $800,000 that belonged to a man who died in 2017.
Toronto police alleged that an individual who had been under the care of the Public Guardian and Trustee passed away. According to reports, the man died after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
An officer then came forward with a fraudulent will and swore and filed a false affidavit with the courts, supporting his claim that he was the beneficiary of the man’s will, according to police.
A senior client representative at the Office of Public Guardian and Trustee then worked on the file and facilitated the fraud.
The officer subsequently received more than $800,000 in payments in 2018.
In 2019, the officer reportedly swore and filed a false affidavit during an unrelated family court proceeding.
Police said the officer and the senior client representative knew each other prior to the offences.
Const. Robert Konashewych, 36, of Niagara, was arrested on July 9, 2020 and charged with two counts of Fraud over $5,000, Breach of Trust and Obstructing Justice. Konashewych has been employed as an officer since 2008.
Thirty-five-year-old Adellene Balgobin, of Toronto, was also charged for allegedly providing Konashewych private information from the dead man’s file.
According to the Toronto Star, if it weren’t for Konashewych’s ex-girlfriend, Candice Dixon, opening his mail and contacting police, the fraud would have never been exposed.
Konashewych’s lawyer says Dixon should face criminal charges for opening his mail, which is a felony in Canada.
In fact, the Criminal Code and Canada Post Corporation Act prohibits the opening of any mail by anyone other than the person it’s addressed to.
Canada post reportedly carries a maximum sentence of up to five years and the Criminal Code conviction comes with a possible life sentence.
Not only can you not open someone’s mail but you also can not hide it or throw it away, even if it’s being sent to your address.
Konashewych’s lawyer is actively working on securing charges against Dixon.
Dixon reportedly maintains that she opened the letters by mistake and believed it was addressed to her ever since Konashewych moved out of the apartment they bought together.
“I just spent the better part of a decade with someone I didn’t know,” she told a Toronto courtroom last Friday via video from Palm Beach, Florida where she now lives.
Konashewych and Balgobin were convicted on the charges in a Toronto courtroom last Friday. They are scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 12.
Balgobin lost her job and Konashewych has been under paid suspension since he was arrested in 2020.
