Accused killer dad Luciano Frattolin may have been struggling to cover child support for his daughter, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to creditors despite depicting a high-flying lifestyle on social media.
The flailing 45-year-old Canadian coffee entrepreneur — charged Monday with the murder of his 9-year-old daughter Melina during a trip to upstate New York — had rented a property in the hip Montreal enclave of Mile End since 2020, which he sublet as an Airbnb, according to a report in La Presse.
He hired two property managers to run the venture, including having them make the rent payments he owed — enabling him to pay his daughter’s child support with what he netted afterward, he said in court documents obtained by the outlet.
But his lease was terminated by the landlord in August 2024 when he fell $26,000 behind in rent. He was also being denied access to the property, where he said he stored his daughter’s winter clothing and toys.
He is currently suing the managers for more than $115,000, claiming they exploited the property without his knowledge and never made the rent payments as promised, according to Le Devoir.
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In turn, the managers alleged Frattolin had planned to empty his bank account and flee the country, which he denied.
An employee of Dépanneur Café, a coffee shop Frattolin once owned and on which he still owes Bank of Nova Scotia about $83,000, said the accused killer had been splitting his time between Italy and Canada for the past 18 months.
The bank said Frattolin also owed them $97,000 in unpaid credit-card debts from Café Gambella, another coffee shop bearing the same name as his online java business, Gambella Coffee.
At his arraignment in Ticonderoga Town Court on Monday afternoon, Frattolin said he couldn’t afford a lawyer and requested a public defender.
But his Instagram page paints a very different picture of his financial situation, rife with photos and posts featuring exotic travel and expensive sports cars and replete with statements such as, “I am truly addicted to Porsche.”
Frattolin and Melina had been traveling across Connecticut and New York as part of a custody arrangement he had with his ex-wife, from whom he split in 2019, New York State Police revealed at a press conference Monday.
Melina sounded fine when she made a phone call to her mom about 6:30 p.m., shortly before the girl and her dad were scheduled to fly back to Quebec, police said.
The dad then reported her missing that night — claiming she’d been snatched by two men in a white van around 7:40 p.m., just an hour after the call with her mom, the Albany Times-Union said.
Hours later, authorities found her body under a log in shallow water near New York’s border with Vermont, with cops later saying the kidnapping report he filed was bogus.
He was charged with second-degree murder and concealment of a human corpse. He’s due back in court July 25.
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