Peter Smiley, a lawyer who is acting on behalf of other alleged victims, said he expected there would be more lawsuits filed in the months to come.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Five people, including a real estate agent, her husband and an eyelash technician, have filed a lawsuit seeking in excess of $2-million from the estate of alleged serial fraudster Arash Missaghi, his family members and several business partners.
The five plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit they were victims of fraudulent misrepresentation, embezzlement, theft and misappropriation of funds by Mr. Missaghi and his associates, among other allegations. The suit was filed last week, almost two months after Mr. Missaghi and his associate Samira Yousefi were gunned down in their north Toronto office by a man who claimed he was another victim of the pair’s mortgage-fraud scheme.
The documents filed in Ontario Superior Court also note the group is seeking punitive damages from Frederick Allen Yack and Shahryar Mazaheri, lawyers who are the subject of urgent discipline proceedings by the Law Society of Ontario. In separate legal proceedings, the two have been accused of facilitating Mr. Missaghi’s fraud. Both lawyers have denied wrongdoing through their own lawyers.
The suit is among more than 20 estimated lawsuits currently before the courts either directly or indirectly involving Mr. Missaghi, said Peter Smiley, a lawyer who is acting on behalf of other alleged victims. He said he expected there would be more lawsuits filed in the months to come.
The Globe and Mail has reported that despite several police investigations, criminal charges and civil suits, Mr. Missaghi was never found guilty of wrongdoing and never suffered any penalty. Dozens of people claim they were defrauded by his various schemes.
“Our courts are going to be working through these competing claims for many, many years and unfortunately the plaintiffs will all be fighting over a finite and rapidly diminishing pool of assets,” Mr. Smiley said. “This is a very complicated set of litigations.”
Also named in the Aug. 16 lawsuit are Mr. Missaghi’s wife, Laila Alizadeh, and his daughter, Neena Missaghi. They are accused of knowingly assisting in carrying out fraud against the plaintiffs. The suit levels the same accusation at Troy Wilson, an alleged business partner of Mr. Missaghi’s who the lawsuit claims acted as director of more than 15 corporations used as “vehicles of fraud.”
Tony Antoniou, a lawyer for Mr. Mazaheri, said his client denies all allegations made against him in the statement of claim. Mr. Yack’s lawyer, Aaron Hershtal, declined to comment on an active case. Representatives for Mr. Wilson, Ms. Alizadeh and Ms. Missaghi did not respond to requests for comment ahead of publication.
The lawsuit also names three other people. Neither they nor their representatives could be reached for comment. None of the allegations in the lawsuit have been tested in court and statements of defence have not yet been filed.
Plaintiffs Massara Khader, Mohammad Manasreh, Mona Hamamiyah as well as Rajpreet and Jasbir Dhaliwal are asking the court to freeze the assets of Mr. Missaghi’s wife, daughter and business associates while prohibiting the defendants from incorporating or taking control of new corporations.
The plaintiffs say they collectively invested nearly $800,000 with Mr. Missaghi and Ms. Yousefi in a syndicated mortgage scheme.
Ms. Khader, a Mississauga-based realtor, along with her spouse, Mr. Manasreh, claim to have met Mr. Missaghi in 2021 when she represented a tenant on a real estate transaction in which Mr. Missaghi, who was using the pseudonym Armand Astanni, was the landlord.
Under the alias, Mr. Missaghi presented himself as an experienced commercial real estate investor who could provide mentorship to Ms. Khader, according to the lawsuit. She ended up working in his office to assist with property sales until just before his death, when she said in the lawsuit she finally discovered his true identity.
Documents show that Ms. Khader was unaware of any fraud when she involved Rajpreet Dhaliwal, an eyelash technician, and another real estate colleague, Ms. Hamamiyah, in Mr. Missaghi and Ms. Yousefi’s investment pool. Ms. Dhaliwal would later connect her father, Jasbir Dhaliwal, to the investment scheme.
The lawsuit alleges that Ms. Khader first began to question Mr. Missaghi’s alias when she met Neena, his daughter, who was helping her fill out forms. According to the lawsuit, Neena entered her surname as Missaghi, instead of Astanni – the pseudonym – which made the plaintiff suspicious. She conducted a Google search on the name “Missaghi” and discovered that the man she knew as Armand Astanni was in fact a prolific accused mortgage fraudster.
“Ms. Khader was alarmed,” the legal claim notes. “She realized that she had been deceived and that Astanni was Missaghi. Ms. Khader had believed she was close to Yousefi and was shocked that she would lie about Astanni’s true identity.”
After Mr. Missaghi’s death, the court documents say, Ms. Khader visited his widow. Laila Alizadeh allegedly told Ms. Khader that she knew about Ms. Khader and Mr. Manasreh’s investment and that they had been defrauded by her husband.
The lawsuit states that Ms. Alizadeh told Ms. Khader that Mr. Missaghi was killed because too many people like Ms. Khader were demanding Mr. Missaghi pay them back.
When asked for comment about the lawsuit by The Globe, Ms. Khader said she was advised by her lawyer not to speak to media at this time. The other four plaintiffs and their lawyers could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Smiley said Mr. Missaghi’s estate is worth nothing. But assets owned beneficially or controlled by his proxies are worth tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.
“However, very little of these funds likely remain available for his creditors to recover,” he said, adding the new lawsuit is likely one of many forthcoming legal proceedings against Mr. Missaghi’s estate.
“What we’re seeing here is that since Missaghi’s death, people are coming out of the woodwork – people are coming out and realizing that they have been victims of a fraud.”