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 Ray Sobeski holds a cheque for $30 million for his Lotto Super 7 prize in Toronto, April 1, 2004. (Sun Media file photo) |
LONDON -- Five years after a $30-million lottery ticket severed what was left of their torrid and tortured relationship, Ray Sobeski and Nynna Ionson have ended their legal battle -- but maybe renewed, even if briefly, their courtship.
Sobeski and Ionson have settled their dispute in an out-of-court settlement. Terms are secret.
That secrecy might have been the final twist in a tale that grabbed headlines in 2004, because Sobeski waited nearly a year to cash in his winning ticket -- long enough for a divorce decree with the courts.
The world knew of his winnings before his wife.
Sobeski claimed his winnings April 1, 2004, shared one last night and a sexual romp with Ionson in a Woodstock hotel, then left, seemingly for good. Ionson filed a lawsuit soon after, seeking half the lottery winnings.
But The Free Press has learned that since the court case ended this year, the two have been seen several times walking together.
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Those encounters would be the first without lawyers since Ionson confronted Sobeski on his farm Oct. 16, 2005, a year and a half after she sued him for half his fortune.
Neither could be reached for comment, their whereabouts unknown.
The fight is over for that fortune -- at the time, Canada's largest lottery win. But the legal wranglings aren't entirely done -- Ionson has challenged the fees she paid to London lawyer Alf Mamo.
"I can no longer speak for her because she's disputing my legal fees," Mamo said yesterday.
Sobeski's lawyer wasn't available for comment.
The legal fight over the jackpot left behind a trail of evidence of a troubled relationship in which the lines blurred between commitment and passion, love and lust.
That lust is apparent in the staid banker's box that holds their legal records in the London courthouse. In it are the frequent scribblings of Ionson, who documented every encounter and every conversation in her relationship with Sobeski, writing on whatever was within reach -- from bar coasters, to scraps of papers her lawyer found in every nook and cranny of her home.
"Ray has an infection and is on medication so we had to use a condom," Ionson wrote Nov. 14, 2002. "(It's) only the second (condom) in almost eight years, We used one the first time we had sex and never used another because he is fixed."
Near the top of the note, Ionson marked an asterisk, a symbol that appears on many of her notes about Sobeski, as many as three or four asterisks per note.
The symbol held special meaning -- each one represented a time she and Sobeski had sex.
The two met in 1994 at a strip club where Ionson was an exotic dancer, and two days later, Dec. 10, went on a date.
Ionson already had four children and Sobeski two; she had never married and he was divorced.
There would be more men for Ionson -- no more than five, if you believe her, and many more if you believe Sobeski.
In either case, she'd later say only Sobeski was worth remembering.
"If I thought the questions today would be on what other person I had sex with and how long the sexual act happened or what was so memorable about it I would give it to you. There is nothing except my husband on my brain," Ionson told Sobeski's lawyer when questioned in 2007 in preparation for a trial over the lottery ticket that never occurred.
Four years to the day after their first date, the two married in a strip mall chapel after Ionson promised to sign a marriage contract. Two days later, when she received the contract, she refused to sign.
"I have to agree on what's on it, otherwise I might as well sign a blank piece of paper," Ionson said under oath in 2007.
Sobeski would later say their union ended that day -- but their relationship, and especially their sexual obsession, continued.
On one day in 2001, Sobeski left a series of frantic messages on Ionson's answering machine, desperate to speak to her -- she kept the tape along with many others.
"I can't even go to work, honey. My knot, my stomach is f---ed . . . You're my everything . . . Nothing else matters and if you would just talk to me, just to me a little bit, honey," he said.
Ionson was troubled long before she met Sobeski, court records suggest -- a case worker with the Children's Aid Society in Oxford County chronicled encounters that began in 1984.
Ionson described during legal questioning her trouble after meeting Sobeski, including a trip to Woodstock General Hospital in December 2002 for a psychiatric assessment.
"(The psychiatrist) told me that I was a sex slave for my husband . . . I had to choose between getting help from the hospital or my husband and I chose my husband."
The two maintained separate homes and she spent many nights at his, leaving her children alone and raising concerns with neighbours, the area school and Children's Aid, records show.
But while Sobeski insisted during the case that the novel arrangement meant the marriage was over, he later relented once he and Ionson agreed to settle the lawsuit.
Sobeski consented to having a court set aside their earlier divorce because the couple had not been truly separated.
The court also granted a new divorce, but one based on a separation date of April 3, 2004 -- after Sobeski collected his lottery winnings.
jonathan.sher@sunmedia.ca
VOICE MESSAGES
In a court affidavit, Ionson provides what she says is a transcript of voice messages Sobeski left for her in August 2001, three years after they were married and three years before he claims his winning lottery ticket. Below are excerpts.
This is your husband calling . . . um, don't forget about him because he loves you and he needs you and he wants you and, uh, your husband will do anything for you, you just gotta tell him, tell him what he needs because he just doesn't know anymore and he's a piece of s--- without ya.
"Can you not at least, me being your husband, can I not at least get a little something, like what's what happened like, what's goin' on honey? I want to be married and be a family together and do all that stuff, go on like that and be a real husband and wife . . . twice last week you said that you loved me and you said that nobody has a love like us. Or nobody is as good as us and, you know what, I believe that from the bottom of my heart, I believe that totally, um, and don't throw it away, Nynna, cause we can be so good. Just work with me and let me.
"I won't drive you away like I've been doin' in the past
. . . I know that I can be the husband that you want and I know you. I know you can be the wife that I want. I thought we wanted the same things, to be married and be together.
"I'm just not, um, doin' very well. I went, you know, I go for a drive down the road in the f---in' car and this song comes on that, that reminds me, you know that one Eric Clapton song that you know -- 'you look wonderful tonight' . . . anyway, and like I'm a f---in' puddle. I almost can't drive. I'm balling my eyes out, breaking down. I can't do this anymore honey.
"If you have any feeling for me at all, will you just f---in' talk to me? I thought we wanted the same things, to be married and to be together, and we'd build a little, a little place in the bush there one day and ah, that's all I want, to be with you and, and I don't know, I thought you wanted the same things .
"You're (my)life and I think I'm part of your life. I'm your life, too, so we're soulmates. Don't throw it away, honey, because I really don't think that neither of us are going to find, find a love like that anymore . . . Don't forget about me because I'll always love you.
"I can't even go to work honey. My knot, my stomach is f---ed. You're my everything. Nothing else matters and if you would just talk to me . . . a little bit, honey."
UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
As part of the lawsuit, Nynna Ionson was questioned Nov. 27, 2007, in London by a lawyer representing Ray Sobeski. Below are excerpts as recorded on a transcript.
On being a stripper
Q: You took off your clothes?
A: Yes and I'm quite proud of my body.
On having sex with other men during marriage
Q: Did you have sex with anyone else other than your husband from the day that you married him until the day that you separated?
A: I will be honest, yes I have.
Q: All right. So tell me about everybody you had sex with . . .
A: Unfortunately, for myself, it wasn't very memorable. I only remember sex with my husband . . . I have no memory or name in my head to give you.
On Sobeski not wanting to support her children during their marriage, which led her to twice speak to a lawyer:
A: He wanted me to stay on Mothers Allowance as I had been (before we were married) . . . He said, 'I didn't want to support you and your kids." . . . I know my husband. He was playing it two ways. He was telling me, 'oh, get back on your Mothers Allowance.' I'm still feeding the man, he's still sleeping with me but he doesn't want to support me and my children. He's honest about that . . . My Mothers Allowance worker caught us at Wal-Mart walking hand-in-hand and we were both wearing our wedding rings.
On agreeing to sign a marriage contract, then not doing so:
Q: Now before you got married to Ray you agreed you were going to sign a marriage contract, correct?
A: Yes, that's true. I agreed.
Q: And you changed your mind?
A: No. I have to agree on what's on it, otherwise I might as well sign a blank piece of paper. I have to agree to what it says .
On maintaining separate homes:
Q: Wasn't the plan that you were supposed to live in the same house?
A; Yeah.
Q: And that never happened?
A: It hasn't happened yet.
Q: Do you still think it might happen?
A: Yes.
On the hundreds of notes and tapes she made about her relationship with Sobeski:
A: I always write things down. My mother was the same way.
On being admitted to a psychiatric ward of Woodstock General Hospital days before Christmas in 2002:
Q: Did the doctor give you a diagnosis?
A: She told me that I was a sex slave for my husband . . . I had to choose between getting help from the hospital or my husband and I chose my husband.
- Compiled by Free Press reporter Jonathan Sher