The Canadian man charged with murdering his 9-year-old daughter in upstate New York and then falsely reporting her as kidnapped pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.
Luciano Frattolin, 45, was denied bail at his detention hearing in Essex County, the CBC reported. He faces charges of second-degree murder and concealing a corpse in the death of Melina Frattolin.
The suspect’s arraignment was dominated by debate over his financial resources, according to the Albany Times-Union. Defense attorneys claimed he was not a flight risk and would stay in New York at a friend’s place.
But prosecutors argued he had extensive wealth, the Times-Union reported. They said he bid $5 million for a property in Montreal, showed a realtor a bank account with $30 million in it and was planning to sell a mining company.
Frattolin’s actual wealth was already uncertain. He was involved in several lawsuits and was facing significant debt, according to a July 23 report from the Montreal Gazette.
Prosecutors also claimed Frattolin had Ethiopian and Italian passports, according to the Times-Union. His lawyers said he had no Ethiopian passport and was willing to surrender his Italian passport.
Frattolin and his daughter were on a weeklong trip through New York beginning July 11 and scheduled to end July 20. Melina Frattolin lived full time with her mother in Montreal, and her parents were separated.
But on July 19, Frattolin reported Melina had been kidnapped from his van while he was urinating on the side of the road near Lake George. Authorities quickly issued an Amber Alert because Melina was supposedly in “imminent danger.”
However, Frattolin’s story quickly unraveled, and he was arrested the next day. Investigators late found Melina dead in a pond in Ticonderoga, about 30 miles north of Lake George. Her death was ruled a homicide, and her cause of death was asphyxia due to drowning.
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