“To find the truth and to find the perpetrator that committed the crimes.”
“And how do you know you are making progress?”
“Additional evidence is coming in.”
Something about the way the detective was answering—he was much more at ease than the last time he’d given testimony—made me ask more probing questions. Earlier, Justice Pringle or the Crown had cut me off. Not this time.
“Detective Yim, at this point, sixteen months, does the police force have a theory of the case?”
Yim paused. He was silent for twenty seconds. He looked up once at the Crown and then answered, “Yes.”
To say my heart quickened is an understatement. In that moment, I saw the next day’s front page. “And what do you mean by theory of the case?”
A second long pause. “An idea of what happened.”
I leaned forward on the lectern. “And have you identified any number of persons of interest?”
Scrutton was on his feet. “Your Honour, I am going to object to that question.”
Before Justice Pringle could speak, I took a shot. “Your Honour, I appreciate the sensitivity, but now we have just learned the Toronto Police force has a theory of the case. That theory is an idea of what happened, and I would like to explore that. It seems to me pretty revelatory. Theory of the case. An idea of what happened. To me that equals you have a suspect or suspects.”
Justice Pringle ruled that I could not continue that line of questioning, on the grounds that for Yim to reveal whether police had a suspect would defeat the sealing order we were arguing about. As the day wore on, Yim did provide more information during another line of questioning. I tried several approaches to get Yim to admit that they had a suspect. The affidavit he had filed in court to oppose my motion to unseal the documents noted that as of April 2019, detectives had interviewed 243 people in their hunt for answers. This was only a handful more than the number they had interviewed by the fall of the previous year, an indication to me that police believed they had most of the information they required—they just needed to build a legal case. Yim did not confirm that. But when I asked him if there were people (police call them witnesses but that does not mean they actually saw something, just that they had pertinent knowledge) police were unable to interview, he paused again, and said that was the case. In fact, Yim said, there were some people who had refused to speak to detectives. I got the strong sense from his answers that it was one or two individuals. In my cross-examination I asked him what reasons the individuals had given. Yim replied: “They don’t have to give a reason. They are not obliged to give a statement to police.” The detective also said that they were having difficulty with a small number of witnesses because they either could not find them, or they “may have left the country.”
Another tantalizing item was that the police were about to receive a significant amount of electronic data from an “entity” in response to a production order obtained two months before. The “entity” had been dragging its feet. What that information was, and whether police detectives knew who the killer or killers were, would have to wait for another day. I speculated that it was someone’s cellular telephone records, banking records, or GPS location records. That got me exactly nowhere. Pringle acknowledged the importance of the media attempting to unseal the files. “Open court principles and freedom of the press are extremely important issues, constitutionally grounded in the Charter.” She said that one day, she believes these investigative files will be released. But not this time, she ruled. She encouraged me to return to court again on the matter. In her ruling, she stated that the information contained in those manila envelopes was simply too sensitive to release. Her fear was that if it got out, it would damage the police investigation and allow the killer or killers to get away. Rejecting my argument that police were merely speculating about the harm that publicizing at least some parts of the investigation would cause, Pringle said they were real fears. “I disagree that the risks are speculative. In this case of a brutal, targeted, double murder, common sense and logical inference give rise to an obvious risk of violence to witnesses and a real potential for manipulation of evidence by the perpetrator(s).”
* * *
—
The other court challenge I mounted, with the help of the Toronto Star and lawyers Iris Fischer and Skye Sepp, related to the estate of Barry and Honey Sherman. My challenge began six months after the Shermans died. Apotex and all of Barry Sherman’s holdings were private. Bloomberg data estimated his wealth at Can$4.7 billion. But was he actually that wealthy? Was he worth more? And who were his beneficiaries? Sources had said the money went primarily to his four children, but I wanted to confirm this and learn if there were any terms or strings attached. Hoping to find answers, I frequently checked at the computer terminal on the seventh floor of one of the courthouses in Toronto, which holds records for probate court. One day, I saw Barry and Honey Sherman’s names and asked for the files. I was told they were sealed, which is highly unusual; estate files are typically public. In this case, a Superior Court justice (one rung higher than Pringle) had sealed the files out of fear that, by revealing information that identified the heirs or the trustees of the estate, they might be kidnapped or killed. That led to a year-long battle, which at time of writing was still ongoing. As I had done in my search warrant challenge, I argued that the risk was speculative. In fact, as I learned, the Sherman family had not even filed any information from the Toronto Police stating that they were in danger. Besides, it was not a state secret that the four children were the heirs and that their father was a billionaire. A kidnapper would not need a public file to know that, or to find out who the trustees were. I lost my initial argument at Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice when justice Sean Dunphy, who had originally sealed the files, ruled that there was simply too much risk in releasing any of the information. I appealed, and six months later, in April 2019, found myself arguing the case in front of a panel of Justice David Doherty and two other judges of the Ontario Court of Appeal. Doherty, writing for the three judge panel, sided with my argument. “The suggestion that the beneficiaries and trustees are somehow at risk because the Shermans were murdered is not an inference, but is speculation.” Doherty ordered the entire estate file made public in a week, giving the Sherman family lawyers time to attempt an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. At time of writing, both sides await the Supreme Court’s decision on whether it will hear the appeal.
While my court challenges have yet to yield official information about the Sherman estate, I have through sources learned bits and pieces of information outside of the court process. I learned a great deal about Barry Sherman’s plans for his wealth, and about the opposition he received from his son over how that money should be spent.
Barry Sherman had a will. Honey did not, a fact never explained by family or friends and something that came as a complete surprise to close friends like Joel Ulster and Fred and Bryna Steiner. Barry’s will was a simple document, created in 2013 and described by a lawyer who saw it as being “not too far removed from the boilerplate will you could get from Staples.” Should he die before Honey, it set up a “living trust” to look after his wife, under the guidance of four trustees. The names of those trustees were changed in 2015 and again in 2017. When Sherman died, the trustees, which are sometimes also called executors, were Jonathon Sherman, Alex Glasenberg, Jack Kay, and Alex Sherman’s husband, Brad Krawczyk—an all-male group of trustees. Jack Kay had been on a mission in 2017 to add a fifth trustee so that if there was ever a contentious issue, there would be a numerical tiebreaker. Sherman was having a hard time finding someone to act as an additional trustee, according to one businessman who said he passed on the offer because he did not want to get tied up in Sherman family politics. As to adding a woman, someone who had in-depth discussions with Sherman about that issue observed that Sherman had chauvinistic tendencies and had commented “I cannot have a woman, they are to
o emotional.” When I heard that, I thought of the senior executive and management team I met at Apotex, both at head office and at the plants I visited. Mostly men. Further, I found it unusual that Barry’s will did not turn over his entire estate to his wife should he predecease her. Instead, his will puts control in the hands of the four trustees, who would provide her with living expenses; on her death, the entire estate would transfer to the four Sherman children. I was also told that another section of the will stated that the trustees could, at their discretion, provide for the Sherman nieces and nephews: the children of Barry’s sister, Sandi, and of Honey’s sister, Mary. The controversy over that section, and a related promise Mary had said her sister had made, was a major factor in the rift between the Sherman children and Mary’s side of the family.
The will made no provision for money to go to charity, which surprised many, given how generous the Shermans were in their lifetimes.
The lack of specific instructions regarding charitable donations raises an interesting issue, as people very close to Sherman said he often talked about gifting much of his fortune to philanthropic causes. Joel Ulster told me that Sherman never intended for his children to inherit all the Sherman wealth. “It was just too much,” Ulster said, recalling his friend’s point of view on the matter. “Over the years, [Barry] certainly told me that he intended to give away the bulk of his wealth to charity, while leaving enough for his kids to be provided for, now and in the future.”
Other friends heard similar comments, though it appears Sherman never committed this to paper. Daughter Alex said her father talked with her in the last few months leading up to his death about signing on to the Giving Pledge, created in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, where the world’s wealthiest individuals commit to donating 50 percent or more of their wealth to charity in their lifetime. Alex said she urged her father to do just that, though it appears not to have been done. Jack Kay has no specific recollection of Sherman mentioning the Giving Pledge but says his friend often talked about continuing his practice of making major donations to charity. Barry Sherman clearly said different things to different people. While he mused about giving away the bulk of his fortune in his lifetime, the reality was that most of his money was wrapped up in Apotex, or his Sherfam investments, so to make the kind of charitable donation he was suggesting would require selling Apotex and liquidating his other assets. He did not want to do that, at least not in 2017. Jack Kay said Sherman had a “five-year vision” to expand Apotex facilities in Toronto, to build his new operation in Florida, and to invest millions of dollars in the business company wide. With Sherman alive, most of his wealth was out of reach.
Sherman was also contemplating giving a large amount of money to Honey. His wife lamented to many of her friends, including Bryna Steiner and Leslie Gales, that she had no money of her own. Of course, she had access to cash to go on trips and to shop, but that was not what she wanted. Honey wanted, according to Gales, the same as what her children had received from their father—namely, millions of dollars (though some had received more than others). According to some of Barry and Honey’s friends, Barry was planning to give Honey a major financial gift. There was often tension between the couple over Honey’s elaborate plans for their new home, and friends of Honey say that if she had her own money, she could proceed on the Forest Hill project without having to go to Barry when costs were escalating. The amount of the gift was to be between $100 million and $500 million, Honey told her friends. The Apotex founder never gave a figure, just that it was to be a “substantial amount of money,” according to Jack Kay. Honey’s friends say she provided dollar figures, which differed over time. It was generally accepted among Honey’s circle of friends that a good chunk of that money would go to support her sister, Mary. “Honey was getting money from Barry, and Mary was going to get some of that,” says one source. The planned gift from Barry to Honey apparently did not materialize before their deaths.
It is clear that Barry Sherman had plans for his money, but they were ill-defined. Friends say that though he joked about dying, he never really intended to die. As he often told Jack Kay, he simply had too much to do. How he spent his money was up to him. He wanted, for example, to expand his Toronto operations and purchase and invest in a facility in Florida to manufacture fentanyl and other painkillers for the US market. Cash was tight due to some of his recent court losses, so he decided to focus first on enhancing Apotex’s value. But there was one person who pushed back: Jonathon. He reminded his father by email in 2015 that he was a Columbia University–educated man and knew how to analyze deals and determine the best place to spend money. “Mainly it comes down to risk and reward,” Jonathon wrote to his father. “How much money do I need to risk in order to return a certain amount of money over a certain period of time and what is the likelihood of failing?” Friends of Barry Sherman say that he tried his best to be patient with his son, but that he did not like to be lectured. It also bothered Barry that his son was suggesting that his business partner might one day play a role in succession in the family business.
Jonathon’s business partner, Adam Paulin, was a Toronto man he had met years before at summer camp. Paulin had business degrees from both the Richard Ivey School of Business at London, Ontario’s Western University, and the York University Schulich School of Business, where he completed an MBA in 2010. A few years later he and Jonathon started Green Storage, making a series of purchases funded by Barry Sherman’s money. They bought small self-storage companies in towns north of Toronto, including Bolton and Aurora. The money that launched Green Storage came from Hour Holdings, which corporate records show is listed in the names of Jonathon Sherman and Adam Paulin. In reality, according to Sherman insiders, it was Barry Sherman’s money. Hour Holdings uses Apotex as its mailing address. That financial relationship was alluded to in Jonathon’s eulogy at the memorial service for his parents. “When I entered your office about five or six years ago with my good friend Adam, we told you about our plan to start a business together and you were so incredibly supportive and excited. We had the world’s shortest shareholder agreement which basically said, ‘Anything, anytime.’ ” At the time of Barry’s death, Hour Holdings had registered at least $127 million in loans against either Green Storage properties or a small marina and cottage business Jonathon and Paulin were running. Typically, there is a favourable interest rate and no payment schedule. The information in the public land-title documents provides only the barest detail, and the price paid for two of the purchases is not even listed. Of the cost of the properties purchased that are listed, the total purchase value is $23 million, far less than the $127 million in mortgages attached to the properties. The records do not indicate the cost of renovating the storage warehouses to bring them under the Green Storage banner.
As Sherman was funding his son’s Green Storage enterprise, he also continued to pour money into Frank D’Angelo’s businesses. Jonathon and Frank had butted heads back in the brewery days. Neither liked the other. Jonathon accused D’Angelo of being a bad businessman. As to what D’Angelo thinks of Jonathon Sherman, he says the word that comes to mind is “entitled.”
Matters between Barry and Jonathon came to a head in 2015, a development documented, at least in part, in an email exchange between the two on the last two days of April of that year. The subject line is “Explain it to me,” and Jonathon is asking his father why he has poured $250 million into D’Angelo business schemes, a number that Barry does not refute in the email chain, but D’Angelo does.
“Can you explain it to me?” Jonathon asks. “I’m bright and educated. If you explain it to me, I will try and understand.”
“Explain exactly what?” Barry shoots back a minute later.
Jonathon: “How you determine that it is worthwhile to invest more money with Frank despite year after year of losses? What are you seeing that everyone else is missing?”
Barry: “It is always a judgment call
as to whether it is a better bet to write off what is [already] in, or to invest more to continue to try to increase value, to reduce the loss. Not as simple as you might think.”
Jonathon fires back a lengthy email, explaining how he has a knowledge of accounting and finance. “I comprehend most concepts, like sunk cost, investment timelines, NOI, ROI, asset appreciation/depreciation, brand building, etc.” He accuses his father of avoiding providing serious answers by making comments such as “I’m in charge so I have to make all the decisions.”
Jonathon also describes his approach to dealing with people, which he says is better than what he has witnessed over the years from the acerbic D’Angelo. “I only wish you and I talked more so I could share stories about my interactions with people at the Marina and Storage facilities,” he says. “I do everything possible to please my customers and my staff because I value them immensely. I don’t work because I want to make money, and I never will. What gives me the greatest pleasure at work is being overly nice to people when they may not expect it, and to see their reactions! I go to work because I have fun providing a great service to people and working with happy staff. Frank, on the other hand, manages to rub everyone the wrong way.”
Throughout the exchange with his father, Jonathon refers to the Sherman family investments using the pronoun “we.” Criticizing his father’s investments over the years, he writes, “There have been other examples of businesses into which we have invested many millions and eventually determined that conditions would not change for the better. Deerhurst and Steelback are two examples.”
Barry’s responses, in contrast, are brief. He does not engage with his son on his main points. “It is always a judgment call,” Barry says of his decisions. “I have to make the call.”
The exchange takes place over two days. On the second day, Jonathon implores his father to meet with him and Adam Paulin so they can make their pitch for an increase in funding to Hour Investments, a company related to Hour Holdings. By this point in 2015, land title records show that Hour Holdings had $71 million registered on title for Jonathon and Adam’s businesses. “Adam and I have great ideas for Hour Investments. We have started strong in the storage business and it has been going very well for us,” he writes. “We would like to expand Green Storage to become a major player in the storage industry, and that will take about $100 million over 10 years.” Jonathon also writes that he and Paulin would like to “buy and manage about 25 percent of the waterfront property on Chandos Lake and it won’t cost that much.” Chandos Lake, near the small town of Apsley, is the area where Jonathon and business partner Paulin own a cottage and a small marina, purchased with Sherman money. Jonathon estimates that their plan to purchase three hundred cottages will cost “roughly 150 million dollars.” With the inflated price of real estate in Ontario’s prime cottage country in Muskoka to the west of Chandos, Jonathon’s plan does seem a good investment and he writes to Barry that he wants to plead his case for the money to put his “15-year plan” into action. Jonathon vows that if the three agree to meet, “I can promise to remain calm and amicable.” He also raises the issue of the future of his father’s business holdings. “My genuine goal is to understand this situation and then move on to more important matters (like succession planning and whether Adam and I can play some role in that).”
The Billionaire Murders Page 24