A West Vancouver man currently on trial on charges he murdered and dismembered his wife’s cousin inside a British Properties mansion has filed a civil lawsuit against the estate of the man he’s accused of killing, claiming he’s owed more than $1 million from a business deal between the two.
The civil lawsuit was filed on behalf of Li Zhao in B.C. Supreme Court May 17 against the estate of Gang Yuan and State Agriculture Development Inc., Yuan’s company.
According to the lawsuit, Yuan and Zhao were partners in a business that had invested in 47 parcels of Saskatchewan farm land, buying the land for $3.76 million.
In February 2015, Yuan and a prospective purchaser signed a letter of intent to negotiate a sale of the farm land for $7.8 million, according to court documents. The deal was to wrap up on May 25, 2015.
Under their joint venture arrangement, Zhao was to receive one-third of the profits from any leases or sale of the property, according to the statement of claim. The farm land was subsequently sold “for a significant profit,” according to the lawsuit, but Zhao was never paid his share.
Left unmentioned in the lawsuit is that Yuan was killed at his British Properties home at 963 King Georges Way and his body left chopped up into more than 100 pieces on May 2, 2015.
Zhao, 56, was arrested at the scene. He is currently on trial in B.C. Supreme Court for the second-degree murder of Yuan, 42, and for interfering with human remains.
In the murder trial this week, Justice Terence Schultes ruled that statements made by Zhao to police in a videotaped interview following his arrest are admissible as evidence in the trial. In an English translation of the statement, Zhao described how he shot Yuan at close range on the driveway of the home they shared, and later cut up Yuan’s body with a saw in the garage.
Several lawsuits have already been filed in the wake of Yuan’s death.
At least five women have filed suits claiming their children were fathered by Yuan and are therefore heirs to his estate, currently being administered by Yuan’s brother.
Yuan, a wealthy businessman with interests in both Canada and China, left a fortune estimated to be between $20 million and $50 million.
There has also been a legal dispute between Yuan’s estate and Zhao and his wife Xiao Mei over the ownership of the mansion on King Georges Way, currently assessed at more than $10 million.
In the most recent lawsuit, Zhao alleges that he struck a deal with Yuan under which Yuan supplied the money to buy the Saskatchewan farm land, while Zhao managed the business.
By not paying him a share of the profits as agreed, Yuan’s estate has been “unjustly enriched,” Zhao claims in court documents.
Yuan’s estate has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
