Davis’s godson told he’d inherit nothing, trial hears

 

Marshall Ross had been told he wasn't going to inherit anything from his godfather, Glen Davis.

A year after philanthropist Glen Davis was shot to death, the man responsible for arranging the hit was told he was not getting any money from the will of his late, supposedly favourite relative.
“He did not say anything,” businessman Thomas Whealy recalled after telling Marshall Ross, 41, the news. “I thought I saw a facial flicker of surprise.”
Whealy was a close friend and adviser to Davis, a leading conservation donor credited as having done more to protect Canada’s wilderness than any other person. He was 66 when he died on May 18, 2007.
Whealy was testifying Tuesday at the trial of Richmond Hill homebuilder Dmitri Kossyrine, who the Crown says arranged the killing for Ross, and his friend and employee, Ivgeny “Eugene” Vorobiov.
The Crown alleges Vorobiov fired two bullets into Davis as he walked to his SUV in an underground parking lot at Mount Pleasant Rd. and Eglinton Ave. East. Both accused are 33 and have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
After Davis’s death, Whealy told a Superior Court jury he and the estate trustees agreed a review needed to be done of the financial statements Ross had submitted to N.M. Davis Corporation. He filed the documents after Davis lent him $2.5 million for his fledgling home renovation and resale business.
“I was questioning some of the reporting that he’d done,” Whealy told court.
Whealy found “significant accounting fraud,” in which Ross mischaracterized housing projects as assets, and, in one case, fabricated an $850,000 investment in a condo development in Calgary that didn’t exist.
The prosecution alleges Ross, who was Davis’s godson and cousin, mistakenly believed the $2.5 million loan would be forgiven after his death. That wasn’t the case.
“We wanted him to repay his loan,” Whealy said.
Instead, Whealy said his review determined there was not a single year that Ross’s company, Rosshire Enterprises, was profitable from its inception in 2004.
The trial continues Wednesday.