In a final twist to a bizarre case, murder conspiracy charges against former Metro Toronto News owner Alex Petraitis and his dominatrix mistress have been dismissed, according to reports in major Canadian daily newspapers.

The charges stemmed from an alleged plot in which Petraitis and his mistress hired a onetime Hell's Angels associate to murder Petraitis's wife. The strange case started in 2003 and involved two mistrials and a defense witness who was found dead in a burned-out car.


Masthead started following the case in January 2004, when the Canadian Mass Media Inc. (CMMI) president and Metro News principal was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. At the time three others were also charged; Sandy Rinella (the mistress), Kerry Bob Anderson (Hell's Angels associate), and one other.

According to a recent story in the Star, the Crown stayed murder conspiracy and counselling charges "amid revelations that one of the case’s police investigators is romantically involved with the widow of the dead witness."

Read another recap of the case by Masthead blogger Scott Bullock here.