Canadian NBA star wins lawsuit to undo purchase of mansion where Ontario Crypto King lived

Canadian NBA player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has won what's likely to be a precedent-setting lawsuit to undo his $8.4-million purchase of a Burlington, Ont., lakefront mansion where Ontario's self-described Crypto King Aiden Pleterski used to live.

Last month, a CBC Toronto investigation was first to report on Gilgeous-Alexander's lawsuit to void the sale. The suit alleged the sellers fraudulently misrepresented the luxury home by failing to disclose an alleged series of threatening visits to the property — happening daily, at times — by those looking for Pleterski before the NBA star bought it.

Pleterski, 25, had previously been leasing-to-own the mansion for about $45,000 a month — until his cryptocurrency and foreign exchange investment operation unravelled last year as investors came looking for the more than $40 million they'd given him. 

In a summary judgment issued in November, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Centa found there had been fraudulent misrepresentation in the sale. He voided Gilgeous-Alexander's purchase of the home and awarded the basketball player damages for mortgage and insurance payments he's had to pay since starting the lawsuit.

"[The seller] suppressed the truth about the Burlington property, which in this case amounted to a fraudulent misrepresentation," wrote Centa in his Nov. 27 decision. 

"However, it also went further and made positive representations that the property was private and secure. Those representations were knowingly false."

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John Zinati, a long-time Toronto real estate lawyer who was not involved in the case, told CBC Toronto this is the first time he's ever seen a judge order a seller to buy back a