A former Toronto police officer and his mistress were sentenced to seven years in prison Tuesday for conspiring to steal nearly $1 million from an isolated elder.
Robert Konashewych, a Toronto police officer, and his mistress Adellene Balgobin, an employee of the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee of Ontario, hatched a highly complex plan to create a false will for Heinz Sommerfeld, a man with no dependents suffering from dementia family that helps him.
Since Mr. Sommerfeld’s file was managed by Balgobin, the two lovebirds found a way to include the police officer among the beneficiaries named in the false will. After the man’s death in 2017, Konashewych “inherited” just over $830,000.
That money would normally have gone to Mr. Sommerfeld’s half-brother Peter Stelter, who would have been able to use it to keep his Florida home after he lost his job, Ontario Superior Court Judge Sean Dunphy said, according to a published summary of the trial by the Toronto Sun.
Ultimately, the two accomplices were caught because Robert Konashewych left his partner Candice Dixon but forgot to change his address. She discovered the pot of roses when she received mail about the inheritance and rushed to report her ex.
“This was a complex, highly planned and long-term fraudulent operation. “The gravity of this crime and the degree of moral culpability of the two defendants are very high,” said Judge Dunphy, quoted by the Sun.
The two lovebirds will therefore spend seven years behind bars, an exemplary sentence, especially since the defense has proposed a sentence of two years less per day that they must serve in the community.