The long-awaited justice for a vulnerable man's estate has finally been served. Suspended Toronto Police Const. Robert Konashewych and his former mistress, Adellene Balgobin, have lost their appeal of their 2023 conviction for fabricating a will and defrauding a vulnerable man's estate of $834,000.
Until now, the disgraced 52 Division cop had been suspended without pay and free on bail. With the help of his devious lover, a senior client representative with the Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee office, Konashewych presented himself as the sole heir of Heinz Sommerfeld, a reclusive senior with Alzheimer's disease who died in 2017 while under Balgobin's financial care.
The elaborate scheme only unraveled after the officer'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 soon she was reporting Konashewych to police in 2019.
For a white-collar crime, Superior Court Justice Sean Dunphy took the unusual step of throwing the book at the couple, sentencing them to a stiff seven years in prison. Balgobin also received a concurrent five-year term for breach of trust by a public officer. Ontario's highest court found the trial judge made no errors in admitting evidence, his instructions to the jury weren't unbalanced, and they upheld the sentence even though it was outside the usual three to five years for such crimes.
The pair had urged the appeal court to substitute house arrest or a prison term of no more than three years. However, the judges found that the many severe aggravating factors in this case and the corrosive impact of the fraud on public trust in the police and the OPGT drove the trial judge's decision to impose an "exemplary" sentence.
The rightful heir, Sommerfeld's half-brother Peter Stelter, could have used the inheritance to save his Haliburton home and his Florida condo after he lost his job. Sommerfeld had become reclusive and cut off contact with Stelter, so his brother didn't know he'd been moved to a long-term care home with advancing dementia or that the OPGT had taken over his affairs in 2008.
As his senior client representative, Balgobin knew there was no will found when the government agency sold Sommerfeld's Mississauga home. The old man's death in June 2017 presented a perfect opportunity for the couple, who had been having an affair since 2014.
Superior Court Justice Sean Dunphy said, "the only motive that can be ascribed to his actions is greed." The couple had planned to use the windfall of cash to help make their relationship official, with Konashewych finally leaving his glamorous ex-girlfriend, Candice Dixon.
When it came time to apply for probate, the cop signed an affidavit falsely claiming he'd searched police databases without locating either of the two witnesses to the will. Balgobin wrote an affidavit as a "disinterested party" verifying Sommerfeld's signature. They almost got away with it, but a series of unlikely coincidences led to their downfall.
