John McConnell: Heir to the Montreal Star fortune and his battle against extortion and diabetes

   Montreal Star heir John Roydon McConnell, who died last June in Sainte Marguerite, led a low-profile, sometimes hedonistic life, except for a bizarre 1972 sex extortion scandal in which Mafia don Pep Cotroni played a part in duping McConnell out of $82,000.
  Although McConnell was victimized, Judge Mackay called the then-young man "either stupid or very gullible," and light was shed in court focusing on his "high-flying lifestyle," which led him to burn through most of his $700,000 inheritance within two years, partly by racing cars.
  McConnell also admitted to consuming cocaine and marijuana in court testimony. McConnell also conceded that he drank a bottle of hard liquor a day up until 1975 when he said he quit booze.
   In fact he did quite the opposite and remained a hard-drinking guy until long after.
   The case, alas, effectively put McConnell - who was adopted as a child - on trial, vilifying him for doing things which many young people have done.
   At his funeral (see video above) McConnell's friends praised his generosity and tenacity but also noted McConnell's love for pretty ladies, herb and told of how McConnell once ordered "everything on the left side of the menu," at a Chinese restaurant in Montreal in the early 70s- referring to McConnell's excessive appetite.
   McConnell was extorted in a ruse dreamed up by business partner Yank Barry, aka Yank Falovitch, who had partnered with McConnell in a record company.
   The company did not go well and Barry sued his McConnell Records boss twice in the 1970s.
   Only when Barry raised his suit to $1.4 million in 1978 did McConnell bring the extortion incident to light.
   McConnell, a young man who enjoyed life's pleasures, seduced a woman in Jamaica in 1972, only to learn that the woman was the wife of a big New Jersey-based Mafia bigwig.
   The escort, Leslie Lawton, was no such thing. She told McConnell four years later when he hired her for "personal services."
   She was not charged.

   Jimmy Soccio showed up to act the role of the Mafia bigwig at a meeting at the mount Royal Hotel where he demanded restitution for the offense of being cuckolded. He was later acquitted due to lack of evidence. (A friend of Coolopolis has asked whether there's any connection between him and later disco-mogul Gino Soccio).
   Montreal mob bigwig Pep Cotroni was also said to be somehow involved, or aware of, the ruse.
   McConnell got $92,000 from his father - the money required plus an extra $10,000 for good measure - and paid off the imposter.
   He then attempted to put it all behind him and McConnell didn't much want to even participate in the court case and authorities were initially forced to detain him to get him on the stand.
   McConnell said he fled Montreal for Montego Bay after he spotted two audio recording devices in his apartment.
   Court documents revealed that McConnell, who lived in the Gregor Apartments on McGregor Street as a young man, was worth $3.3 million in 1979, thanks largely to his grandfather John Wilson McConnell who launched the St. Lawrence Sugar Company and then purchased the Montreal Star in 1925, which went defunct in 1979.
   The entire family fortune was ballparked at about $600 million at the time.
   To this day the McConnell Family Foundation is one of the most revered, respected and well-endowed in the city.

Verdict and sentencing 

  A jury of eight men and four women could not agree on a verdict,
  Barry's separated wife Davea Falovitch was charged but acquitted. She said the trial was very difficult on her 12-year-old daughter, who apparently died suddenly in 2004.
   Mob chauffeur Pasquale Martone and old timer Jimmy Soccio were also charged but dodged punishment.
   A second trial by judge without jury led Barry to be imprisoned for six years in 1982. Singer Tony Massarelli was sentenced to two years minus one day.

McConnell runs off with 34-year-old novelist

    McConnell's scandal was not his first.
    McConnell, as a teen, entered into a relationship with 34-year-old bisexual novelist and newspaper reporter Scott Symons and his wife, as recounted in this Globe and Mail article from 2012.
   The McConnell family complained when the 17-year-old McConnell ran off to meet with Symons in Mexico, and put up a reward to find the missing boy a few weeks later in 1966.
   Symons had abandoned his wife and young son to be with McConnell.
   McConnell - according to Wikipedia - threatened suicide if Symonds were punished. The two later lived together in British Columbia and other places before McConnell returned to Montreal.

After the extortion scandal 

   Following the extortion scandal McConnell spent much time in Jamaica and in Sainte Marguerite in the Laurentians where he coped with serious diabetes that required amputation of part of a leg and later premature death.
   McConnell liked his cars and gave out gifts to friends and donated to fire stations.
   The video above is full of praise for the deceased McConnell, but it is implied that he partially brought on his own illness through unhealthy diet and lifestyle.
   McConnell had sufficient assets to hire private nurses and managed to get home dialysis but none of that could save him from dying at age 67 after the long illness.
   One person at his funeral made reference to what he believed to be ineffective medical treatment that McConnell was initially provided.
   So keep active, people.
   "Sometime he was short tempered and some of the things that came out of his mouth were not always so saintly but at the end of it, John was a wonderful, kind and generous man," said another.
   McConnell's illness was so severe in his later days that he could not get out of bed for the final 18 months of his life.
   According to his obit he was never married and had no kids.
   As for Yank Barry. He's still around and living in the Bahamas after beating the state of Texas in another high-profile court battle.
  He more recently launched a lawsuit against Wikipedia for what he considered an unfair entry on him. He abandoned the suit soon after.
    I wrote a lengthy profile on Barry in the past and in our interview he never denied his participation in the extortion scheme but we did not discuss it at length.

•  See also: My article on the incredible tale of Montreal's Yank Barry