Legal battles of Luciano Frattolin, man accused of killing his 9-year-old daughter
Bank suing to recover more than $150,000 in unpaid bills associated with coffee-distribution company, rental property
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Montreal businessman Luciano Frattolin, who is charged with his daughter’s murder in New York state, was facing deep debt and was involved in multiple legal proceedings this year, court documents reveal.
Among them is a lawsuit filed by Frattolin in which he alleges a business associate threatened to jeopardize access to his daughter, Melina.
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Frattolin, 45, reported nine-year-old Melina as kidnapped on Saturday during their vacation to the United States, triggering an Amber Alert and extensive search. She was expected to return that weekend to her mother in Montreal, who has had full custody since a 2019 separation from Frattolin.
Melina’s body was discovered in a pond Sunday afternoon and her father was arrested. Frattolin is charged with second-degree murder as well as concealing a body in connection with her death. He pleaded not guilty to the charges Monday.
Preliminary findings from an autopsy found Melina died from asphyxia due to drowning, New York State Police said Tuesday. Her death was classified as a homicide and the investigation is ongoing.
Police have said Frattolin has no history of reported domestic violence. He doesn’t have a criminal record, according to provincial and municipal court records.
But court records in Montreal show Frattolin was involved in at least five legal proceedings in 2025. He is listed as the plaintiff in three of them.
Prior to his arrest, the businessman’s Instagram account documented various trips, photos with his daughter and the appearance of a lavish lifestyle. He was also reportedly prominent in Ethiopia because of his business dealings there — but Frattolin appeared to be in major debt, according to filings.
In two of the cases, Scotiabank was suing him to recover more than $150,000 in unpaid bills associated with two of his businesses: Gambella Coffee and a short-term rental property. The filings show the debt was accrued through different financial means, including multiple business credit cards and lines of credit. Some of the contracts date back to 2022.
Documents show Frattolin’s lawyer answered the summons in both cases. In a filing from May, there is a notice for a first-case protocol in the case centred on unpaid amounts associated with the rental property.
Frattolin also filed a lawsuit against a man hired as the property manager for his short-term rental property in the Mile End neighbourhood.
In the filing, his lawyer said Frattolin was informed last August by the building’s landlords that rental payments totalling more than $26,000, or about 10 months of rent, had not been paid. The landlords terminated the commercial lease, but Frattolin alleged the property manager was tasked with paying rent as part of his job.
Emails included with the filing show the landlords would not reconsider a lease with Frattolin unless the missed rent payments were made in full. The court records also show a letter of demand was sent by Frattolin’s lawyer in September 2024 to the property manager, terminating the contract.
Frattolin lived in Canada on a part-time basis and started the Airbnb as a way to provide for his daughter and pay his expenses, according to court documents. Quebec’s business registry shows Frattolin recently listed two addresses as his residences: one in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough and the other in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The filing reads Frattolin was “left with considerable sums to pay the arrears of rent, interests penalties and charges related to the property” and hasn’t “received any business revenue since August 2024.”
At the property, Frattolin stored some personal belongings and his daughter’s winter clothes and toys before leaving Canada. But he hasn’t been able to access the property, the filing states.
His lawyer also alleged that the property manager had accused Frattolin of emptying the business bank account and “fleeing the country.” The lawyer wrote the alleged accusations are “frivolous and completely false.”
In the filing, Frattolin alleged the property manager threatened to work with the mother of his child to prevent him from entering Quebec due to the business’s unpaid taxes. This has not been tested in court.
The property manager is also alleged to have used Frattolin’s business permit and “appears to be running the very same business” under a different name, the filing reads.
In April, a judge granted Frattolin’s application for a safeguard order. He also ordered the property manager to “cease all rental and management activities” related to the property, to hand over keys and any other means to access the property, and to provide a list of all homestay websites and applications used for the business’s operations. The same ruling notes the defendants — the property manager and three people listed as mises en cause, including the landlords — were absent and not represented by a lawyer.
The court documents consulted by The Gazette did not include a response by the property manager to the filing.
Frattolin was also before the courts for other matters this year.
In two other cases, he filed motions against three telecommunications giants. He was seeking an order to compel them to disclose the identities of IP addresses that allegedly accessed his email account over several months. In the most recent filing from May, his lawyer said the companies complied with first and complementary orders, but Frattolin was seeking more information about other IP addresses that allegedly accessed a second email account of his.
With files from The Gazette’s Paul Cherry and The Canadian Press
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