A clear motive for the
murder of Allan Lanteigne, the 49-year-old University of Toronto employee whose body was found in his Ossington Avenue home in March 2011, has recently emerged from Ontario Superior Court documents.
And it is a classic motive in murder cases: money. In this instance, a life-insurance policy of $2 million to go to the deceased man's husband, Dimitry Papasotiriou, the disbarred real-estate lawyer who since November 2012 has been one of two men charged with Lanteigne's first-degree murder.
Lanteigne and Papasotiriou were legally wed in Ontario, and though they were estranged for years before the murder, they never divorced.
When Lanteigne's body was found in 2011, Papasotiriou was studying in Switzerland. This provided Papasotiriou with an alibi, although police now seem to have hard evidence that he allegedly hired someone else to kill Lanteigne.
Allan Lanteigne was found murdered in his home on March 3.
The claim to the insurance money, however, was immediately challenged by two of Lanteigne’s relatives. The court battle that ensued over the insurance money was featured in Law Times, a Canadian legal magazine, on Jan 14, 2013. "According to Jane Martin, lawyer for Lanteigne’s mother and sister, Papasotiriou filed for his deceased husband’s insurance money before he was charged with murder and tried to compel the two insurance companies to pay out the claims," the article stated.
It may be the first case of insurance money being alleged as a motive for murder within a legal gay marriage in Canada. As Lanteigne's spouse, Papasotiriou had been set to inherit the entire policy.
After murder charges were laid in November, the court suspended insurance payout hearings until after the case is tried. Papasotiriou’s mother had filed court papers asking to be the recipient of the insurance even if her son was convicted of the murder. But the judge stated, "A criminal cannot profit from his crime in any way."
Ivezic was apprehended by Athens police on an Interpol warrant on Jan 8, 2013, and has been in a Greek jail awaiting extradition proceedings ever since.
Demitry Papasotiriou is charged with the first-degree murder of his estranged husband, Allan Lanteigne.
(Police file photo.)
Ivezic had been president of HealthSonix, an Ontario company that traded millions of shares in the OTC (over-the-counter) market and promised pain relief through sound-wave therapy. It has traded as high as $1.34, according to Stockwatch, a Californian company that monitors stocks, but its price had been reduced to a penny per share by the time Ivezic left in 2006. Trading had been suspended in March 2008 by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which alleged that the company was part of a "corporate hijacking scheme" whereby "unidentified persons appear to have usurped the identity of a defunct or inactive publicly traded corporation to form a new company.”
According to Stockwatch, Ivezic has been involved in other alleged fraudulent stock promotions since 2000.
The police have not said what Ivezic's alleged role in the first-degree murder conspiracy was – whether he was the actual hit man or the person who arranged for the murder with Papasotiriou. Police have also not yet officially stated the cause of Lanteigne's death, although a source close to the crime scene told Xtra that he appeared to have been bludgeoned to death. However, none of the key details of the case have yet been released, but the Crown will have to disclose the details of its case in the course of a bail hearing for Papasotiriou, likely in the coming months.
Anyone with information regarding Ivezic or Papasotiriou’s movements or business affairs is asked to contact Detective Tam Bui at 416−808−7400.