'It would be hard to imagine two institutions in which the public faith is more critical'
The Court of Appeal for Ontario has dismissed the appeals of Robert Konashewych, a Toronto police officer, and Adellene Balgobin, a former employee of the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee (OPGT), affirming their 2023 jury convictions for fraud and upholding their seven-year penitentiary sentences.
Both appellants had raised multiple grounds of appeal against conviction and sought significant reductions in sentence, but were declined in the decision, R. v. Konashewych, by a three-judge panel consisting of Justices George, Favreau, and Pomerance, with Justice George writing for the court.
According to the trial record and sentencing reasons of Justice Dunphy of the Ontario Superior Court, the fraud centred on Heinz Sommerfeld, a 78-year-old man with advancing dementia who had been under OPGT guardianship since 2008. Sommerfeld died on June 19, 2017, with no known will and no family apart from a younger half-brother, Peter Stelter, with whom he had lost contact years earlier.
Estate fraud by couple
At the time of his death, his estate held roughly $835,000 in assets, accumulated primarily from a government pension and the sale of his Mississauga home.
Balgobin worked as a senior client representative at the OPGT and was assigned to manage Sommerfeld's file. Within days of learning of his death, she accessed his personal identification documents from the OPGT vault — documents containing examples of his signature. Six days after his death, she received a voicemail from someone calling himself "Bob Kay" claiming to possess Sommerfeld's will. According to her own trial testimony, she immediately recognized the voice as Konashewych's, her boyfriend of several years.
The will that Konashewych ultimately produced named him as the sole heir, executor, and estate trustee of Sommerfeld's estate. The Superior Court found the will was a fabrication. Neither of the two witnesses named in it had ever existed — there were no Canadian passport records or social insurance numbers for either person — and Konashewych had never met Sommerfeld.
Over the following year, the pair worked to advance the probate application through the courts. Balgobin responded to correspondence from Konashewych's estate lawyers in her capacity as an OPGT official, without disclosing her relationship with him. Konashewych swore a false affidavit as part of the probate application, claiming among other things to have used police databases to search for the fictitious will witnesses.
Balgobin ultimately swore an affidavit in June 2018 identifying herself as a disinterested third party to verify Sommerfeld's signature on the will — a signature she knew he had never affixed.
A Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee was issued on July 4, 2018. Shortly afterward, $834,351 was transferred into Konashewych's bank account.
Investigation into fraud
The scheme began to unravel in late 2018 after Konashewych separated from his common-law partner, Candice Dixon, though his mail continued to arrive at their shared condominium. In December 2018, Dixon inadvertently opened an envelope from a bank addressed to Konashewych in connection with the Sommerfeld estate. Konashewych told her it was a bank error.
In January 2019, Dixon opened a second letter — this one from Konashewych's estate lawyers — that mentioned both the estate and Balgobin's name. Dixon, who had previously been told Balgobin was a stalker, made the connection.
Her family law lawyers obtained the estate court file, and in March 2019 she reported her suspicions to Toronto police.
Both Konashewych and Balgobin were arrested in December 2019. A jury convicted them both of fraud on June 23, 2023.
Sentencing of police officer, government worker
Justice Dunphy sentenced both to seven years in a federal penitentiary for the fraud conviction in December 2023. Balgobin received an additional concurrent five-year sentence — the statutory maximum — for breach of trust by a public officer under section 122 of the Criminal Code, arising from her conduct in her OPGT role.
The sentencing judge found multiple statutory aggravating factors present for each accused, including the magnitude and planning of the fraud, the significant impact on the victim, and the exploitation of the high regard in which both were held in the community. Konashewych's false claim in his probate affidavit that he had used police databases to search for the will witnesses was among the factors cited as engaging the aggravating factor at section 380.1(1)(d) of the Criminal Code.
"It would be hard to imagine two institutions in which the public faith is more critical. The PGT looks after the care and property of the most vulnerable members of society. The Toronto Police Service is responsible for maintaining and enforcing the rule of law in our community,” said Justice Dunphy.
The full proceeds of the estate, which Konashewych had invested, were subject to a restraint order since his 2019 arrest and were directed by the court to be forfeited and returned to Sommerfeld's estate.
Appeals denied
The Court of Appeal rejected all eight grounds of appeal against conviction across both appellants. Konashewych's argument that the proceedings should have been stayed due to a police breach of solicitor-client privilege was dismissed, as the court found the privileged letter had no meaningful impact on the investigation. Both appellants' challenges to the admission of evidence about how they concealed their affair were also rejected — the court found that conduct like Konashewych helping Dixon confront his own affair and Balgobin falsely claiming to be a stalker went beyond ordinary affair concealment and was reasonably consistent with hiding a crime.
Their argument that the jury charge was unbalanced and effectively directed a conviction likewise failed.
Both appellants also lost their sentence appeals. They had sought reductions to community sentences or terms of two to three years, but the Court of Appeal upheld the seven-year penitentiary sentences, finding they did not represent an unreasonable departure from the proportionality principle given the severity of the aggravating factors and the damage the fraud caused to public confidence in the OPGT and the Toronto Police Service.
"The scheme of seeking probate of a forged will made use of the veneer of respectability that his standing as a police officer necessarily imparted to the entire probate process,” said Justice George. “"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."
