The jury trial for three men accused of kidnapping and extorting the self-described “Crypto King” Aiden Pleterski began Tuesday in Toronto with testimony from his former landlord.
“I’m on a phone call right now and I believe this person is being held, kidnapped,” says Sandeep Gupta to an emergency call taker in a recording of a 911 call played in Ontario Superior Court.
“He’s not a friend; he was a renter. I don’t know if you’ve heard on the news — the Crypto King?”
Akil Heywood, Alfredo Paladino and Rakeem Henry are all charged with allegedly kidnapping and extorting Pleterski over the course of three days in early December 2022.
Paladino and Henry are also charged with firearms offences, the aggravated assault of Pleterski, assaulting him with a weapon, and assault causing bodily harm over that same period.
In her opening statement to the jury, Crown prosecutor Julia De Vuono alleged the kidnapping was a result of a “dispute over money,” and that Heywood invested and lost a significant amount with Pleterski, later playing a key role in Pleterski’s bankruptcy proceeding. She also alleged Heywood was the “driving force” behind the plan to kidnap Pleterski.
Crown prosecutor Julia De Vuono made her opening statement to the jury at the trial of Akil Heywood, Rakeem Henry and Alfredo Paladino on Tuesday in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto. (Pam Davies/CBC)
Pleterski, 27, was convicted of fraud last month for defrauding investors of more than $30 million, but has yet to be sentenced.
The Crown said prosecution evidence would show another man, Deren Akyeam-Pong, who is not part of the trial, was the lead kidnapper and alleged Paladino and Henry carried out the kidnapping alongside him.
Between the initial alleged kidnapping on Dec. 5, and Pleterski’s release on Dec. 8, De Vuono said Pleterski was waterboarded, burned with cigarettes, beaten with weapons and had a gun fired beside his head twice.
‘I need my money’
Gupta testified Pleterski called him several times before he finally answered after midnight, in the early hours of Dec. 6, 2022. During the call with Pleterski, Gupta said, he also called 911 on his wife’s phone and maintained conversations with both Pleterski and the 911 operator on speaker phone, so the 911 call recorded what he was saying.
Throughout the call, Pleterski makes several pleas to Gupta to get him millions of dollars.
“I need my money, I need $2 [million] to $3 million, as soon as you can, so I can pay these guys,” he says.
Gupta tries to get information about where Pleterski is throughout the call, and explains that it’s not possible to get that amount of money very quickly.
His family business had a rent-to-own agreement with Pleterski for a Burlington, Ont., home that Gupta said was worth about $10 million in 2022. But he testified that Pleterski stopped making rent payments in the spring of 2022 and never completed the purchase.
Three men are standing trial for the alleged kidnapping and extortion of Aiden Pleterski in December 2022. (aiden.ptrs/Instagram)
The court heard a second recording Tuesday afternoon of a phone call between Pleterski and Gupta, a day after the 911 call, around 10 a.m. on Dec. 7. In it, Pleterski denies being kidnapped or hurt, but says he urgently needs to meet with Gupta in person.
At the direction of police, Gupta agrees to meet at a Tim Hortons just off Highway 401 at Victoria Park Avenue in Toronto a couple of hours later.
Gupta told the court that police had planned to attend in his place, but the meeting never happened, he said, because Pleterski didn’t show up.
According to the Crown’s opening statement, Pleterski was eventually released outside of the Ritz-Carlton in Toronto on Dec. 8, 2022. Gupta testifed that was where he was living at the time of Pleterski’s alleged kidnapping.
Defence suggests Gupta helped Pleterski
Heywood’s lawyer, Hussein Aly, cross-examined Gupta on Tuesday afternoon. In his questioning, Aly asked who Pleterski’s mentor was.
“If I said ‘mentor,’ it was a wrong choice of words,” Gupta testified. “I was a sounding board to him.”
Pleterski paid a numbered company controlled by Gupta’s family business, Sunray Group, more than $42,000 a month in rent between March 2021 and May 2022 toward the purchase of the Burlington, Ont., mansion.
Aiden Pleterski was paying Sandeep Gupta’s family business more than $42,000 a month in a rent-to-own agreement for this lakefront mansion in Burlington, Ont., centre, between March 2021 and May 2022. (Pelin Sidki/CBC)
After that, when Pleterski could no longer pay, Gupta testified he took a roughly $1-million McLaren Senna from him as collateral for the rest he owed. He then moved Pleterski to another property the business owned “far away” because people kept showing up at the mansion looking for him.
“You were hiding him?” asked Aly, the defence lawyer.
“No,” replied Gupta, adding that they moved Pleterski due to safety issues and to protect the property.
“If we knew he was a fraudster, obviously we wouldn’t have let him live there from the beginning.”
Ultimately, Gupta confirmed the house was sold to Canadian NBA star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for $8.4 million, but after a court proceeding, the sale was reversed because of people showing up looking for Pleterski.
Sandeep Gupta, Aiden Pleterski’s former landlord, testified on Tuesday at the trial of three men accused of kidnapping Pleterski. (Pam Davies/CBC)
Aly suggested that in addition to helping Pleterski, Gupta was involved in his fraud scheme. The lawyer said Gupta was Pleterski’s “partner-in-crime, so that’s why he called you to save him.”
Gupta strongly denied ever holding money for Pleterski or having any connection to his scheme.
Paladino’s lawyer, Leora Shemesh, began her cross-examination of Gupta late Tuesday afternoon.
She questioned him repeatedly about why he continued to “coach” Pleterski, house him and propose that he help Sunray invest in currency exchange, when Gupta knew people wanted to harm Pleterski and were showing up at the mansion daily looking for him.
“At the time, that was maybe lack of judgment, for sure,” said Gupta.
Shemesh is expected to continue her cross-examination when the trial resumes Thursday morning.
