Dr. Rahim Valani's journey down the rabbit hole began in May of 2006, when charismatic billionaire Walter Garrick arrived at Sick Kids Hospital to get his son vaccinated.
As a physician, Dr. Valani was far from destitute, but he found himself drawn into Mr. Garrick's amazing universe, where money flowed like tap water. Mr. Garrick said he had made a fortune by acquiring a stake in Google before it went ballistic. He travelled the world in a private jet and rubbed elbows with everyone from Google co-founder Sergey Brin to Toronto Argonauts CEO Pinball Clemons.
Mr. Garrick offered the doctor a chance to join his lucrative world: He would turn Dr. Valani's money into millions through strategic investments. After two weeks of meetings, Dr. Valani decided to give Mr. Garrick $120,000. The rest was history - and not the good kind.
The decision would launch Dr. Valani into a legal and financial wonderland that still entraps him. He has spent nearly two years in a fruitless hunt for his money. The trail has led to everything from a worthless Lichtenstein bank account to a phantom BMW that has changed hands at least four times.
At the centre of the ongoing drama is Mr. Garrick, whose billionaire wunderkind facade has been shattered by a long list of fraud charges and a set of allegations that read like a real-life version of The Talented Mr. Ripley. (A preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin in Toronto on Feb. 23.)
At the moment, Mr. Garrick is living with his father, who pledged his Oakville house to keep his son out of jail pending trial. This week, Mr. Garrick Sr. answered the door, said his son wasn't home, and wondered what all the fuss was about. "Why is everyone talking about Walter all the time?" he asked. "He isn't guilty of anything."
So far, the portrait of Mr. Garrick Jr. has been sketched out by court documents, and by investigators and lawyers who have dealt with him. And even they draw a blank when asked to describe him. "I still don't know who this man is," said James Zibarras, a litigator who represents Dr. Valani. Mr. Zibarras said his investigations of Mr. Garrick's affairs yielded nothing but frustrating glimpses of what appears to be an elaborate, celebrity-laden Ponzi scheme. "Each person he found was used to sell the next one. I've never seen anything like it."
Although ordered to do so, Mr. Garrick has failed to provide a list of assets to Dr. Valani, who had won a pair of judgments against Mr. Garrick and his wife, Nancy Saparowski. (In 2007, Mr. Garrick was ordered to pay Dr. Valani $123,900. His wife was ordered to pay $121,982.)
When neither of them paid, Dr. Valani went after their assets. Despite Mr. Garrick's elaborate stories about fat bank accounts, real estate holdings and stock portfolios, Dr. Valani found only one verifiable asset: a BMW X5 luxury vehicle that was registered to Ms. Saparowski. But getting even the BMW has so far proved impossible.
In August, 2007, the Toronto Sherriff's department was ordered to seize it. After weeks of searching, the sherriffs told the court they couldn't find the BMW. In November of 2007, Ms. Saparowski was ordered to provide the vehicle's whereabouts. At a court-ordered meeting, she said that Mr. Garrick had bought the vehicle but put it in her name, that she had driven it for a while, but had given it back to her husband. She said she didn't know where the BMW was, and that her husband did, but wouldn't tell her when she asked him.
Later that month, Mr. Garrick was ordered to attend a meeting about the BMW, but refused to answer any questions on the record. Mr. Zibarras filed a contempt motion, and the BMW remained at large. In the meantime, according to court documents, the BMW was quietly changing hands. According to a statement of claim filed by Dr. Valani, it had been transferred into the name of Yan Valle, an associate of Mr. Garrick's. This, according Dr. Valani's lawsuit, was the beginning of an automotive shell game: ".....on March 28, 2008, Valle transferred ownership from Nancy to himself, then from himself to his corporation, Citi Design Corp (Citi). On April 22, 2008, the BMW was resold from Citi to Mr. Asaf Deen and Mrs. Aileen Sue Siu Yue."
What will happen at Mr. Garrick's fraud trial is anybody's guess. He faces 16 charges of theft and fraud. The witness list includes legendary CFL quarterback Damon Allen, child actor Ken Vadas, and of course Mr. Clemons, the well-liked Argos CEO. The case against Mr. Garrick has grown since his arrest last September. In November, Halton Regional Police charged him with five counts of fraud over $5,000 and one count of fraud under $5,000 in connection with another alleged scam. Earlier this month, Toronto police charged Mr. Garrick with attempted fraud over $5,000 and two counts of not complying with bail conditions. They allege that he attempted to defraud a real estate office in Greenwich, Conn., through the purchase of a house there.
"This is not a typical case," said Detective Alex Gauthier, the Toronto police fraud squad officer who led the investigation. "You could go your whole career without seeing something like this."