Suspended Toronto Police Const. Robert Konashewych and his former mistress Adellene Balgobin are finally heading to prison after losing their appeal of a 2023 conviction for fabricating a will and defrauding a vulnerable man's estate of $834,000. Ontario's highest court upheld the seven-year prison sentence, rejecting arguments that the trial judge made errors in admitting evidence or that the sentence was excessive.
Conviction and Sentence Upheld
The disgraced 52 Division officer had been suspended without pay and free on bail since his conviction. Balgobin, a senior client representative with the Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee (OPGT), received a concurrent five-year term for breach of trust by a public officer. The pair had urged the appeal court to substitute house arrest or a prison term of no more than three years, but the three-judge panel dismissed their appeal.
“It cannot reasonably be disputed that Mr. Konashewych traded on his status as a police officer and the ‘high regard’ in which he was held in committing this fraud,” wrote Justice Jonathon George on behalf of the panel. “It was the many severe aggravating factors in this case and the corrosive impact of the fraud on public trust in the police and the OPGT that drove the trial judge’s decision to impose an ‘exemplary’ sentence.”
The Scheme Unravels
The elaborate scheme targeted Heinz Sommerfeld, a reclusive senior with Alzheimer’s disease who died in 2017 while under Balgobin’s financial care. Konashewych presented himself as the sole heir of Sommerfeld’s estate, which included a Mississauga home sold by the OPGT. The fraud only unravelled after Konashewych’s suspicious ex-girlfriend mistakenly opened a piece of mail addressed to the “Estate of Heinz Siegfried Sommerfeld c/o Robert Konashewych.” Her lawyer investigated and reported Konashewych to police in 2019.
Court heard that the rightful heir, Sommerfeld’s half-brother Peter Stelter, could have used the inheritance to save his Haliburton home and Florida condo after losing his job. Sommerfeld had become reclusive and cut off contact with Stelter, who did not know his brother had been moved to a long-term care home or that the OPGT had taken over his affairs in 2008.
Greed as the Only Motive
Superior Court Justice Sean Dunphy, who sentenced the couple, described the crime as driven by greed. Balgobin and Konashewych had been having an affair since 2014, and a windfall of cash was intended to help Konashewych leave his glamorous partner, Candice Dixon. “The only motive that can be ascribed to his actions is greed,” Dunphy said.
Balgobin accessed documents with Sommerfeld’s signature. Konashewych drew up a fake will with fake witnesses, backdating it to 2006, claiming he was 22 and working security at Woodbine Racetrack when he met and befriended the 66-year-old loner, who allegedly appointed him executor and left him the entire estate.
How the Fraud Nearly Succeeded
Konashewych notified the OPGT of the will. Stelter was located, but his lawyer told him the will appeared valid. When applying for probate, the cop signed an affidavit falsely claiming he had searched police databases without locating either of the two witnesses. Balgobin wrote an affidavit as a “disinterested party” verifying Sommerfeld’s signature. They almost got away with it.
“In October 2017, trouble erupted,” the trial judge said. “Through a series of unlikely coincidences that even a pulp novelist might have blushed to concoct, news of the relationship between Mr. Konashewych and Ms. Balgobin made its way to the ears of Miss Candice Dixon.” When Konashewych collected his ill-gotten gains and left Dixon, he forgot to forward his mail—a fatal mistake that led to his downfall.
