Nothing attracts gold diggers like a nouveau-riche cadaver.
Readers will recall that Glenn Assoun, who died in June, became a self-made millionaire the hard way…
Oct./95: Assoun beats up his girlfriend, prostitute Brenda Way, in their room at the Four Star Motel in Dartmouth. In her statement to police, Brenda said that Assoun “asked me if I wanted to know what death felt like.”
Nov./95: Way is found dead, from multiple stab wounds, in the parking lot of an Albro Lake Road apartment building.
1999: Assoun catches life in prison for second-degree murder, as RCMP paper-shredders whir in the background. The alcoholic landscaper was in police crosshairs from the beginning.
2014: Assoun is granted bail and the court orders a review of his conviction.
What happened? After working the Assoun file for years, Innocence Canada legalists found a piece of evidence from Brenda’s cousin, Karen, that police hadn’t included in disclosure materials.
In her statement to police in 1995, Karen said she overheard two men discussing the stabbing at a bar.
“What I overheard was, ‘You should have seen the look on her face when I slit her effing throat.’”
2019: Federal Justice Minister David Lametti quashes Assoun’s conviction and orders a new trial. The Crown declines the mulligan. It later emerges that Sgt. Goofy also destroyed potentially exonerating evidence. Released from prison, Assoun gets $200K in walking-around money from the taxpayers of Nova Scotia.
2021: The provincial government digs deeper for Assoun, but refuses to speculate on the amount he was awarded for spending 16 years in the slammer.
June/23: Assoun dies. His daughters, Amanda and Tanya are set to divvy up pater’s $3.8 million estate (a house in Dartmouth, a 2017 GMC Sierra, and a $3.3 million chequing account.)
But wait! Here comes cousin Karen, looking for her piece of the action—$500K to be exact—for, er, “emotional distress.”
In an interview this week, Way told Frank that her half-million demand isn’t much to ask considering that without her, Assoun might well have died in prison. She added that she’s been disowned by her own family – they think she helped free Brenda’s killer. She’s also persona non grata with Clan Assoun, who blocked her from paying her last respects at a private service held for Glenn. (She admitted that she’d only met him twice, decades ago.)
Quoth her Nov. 20 Probate Court application: “Death threats…for the past 12 years I’ve feared going out in public due to all the hatred… I feel like I’m entitled to receive compensation for all I’ve gone through.”
Others who might also feel entitled include Glenn’s two adult sons and their offspring since Dad left ‘em bupkis, but they’ve yet to come forward.
Final heartfelt words from Halifax Examiner sob sister, Tim Bousquet, June/23:
“Glenn’s story is one of perseverance against all odds… Who am I to judge Brenda and Glenn’s relationship? A sex worker fighting a crack addiction… an uneducated, aimless alcoholic… I saw through the stereotypes and found two distinctive, complex people, each in their way spirited and humorous, both righteous… They found love… it was a rocky, confused, sometimes ridiculous love, but love nonetheless. In each other, they found refuge…”
I’m not crying, you’re crying!
