The first person arrested as a suspect in the murder of cryptocurrency influencer Kevin Mirshahi says she had nothing to do with his death and is requesting to be released on bail while her case is pending.
Mirshahi, 25, was kidnapped along with other people in Old Montreal on June 21. The other people were released hours later but police were unable to locate Mirshahi until his body was found at Île-de-la-Visitation park in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough on Oct. 30.
Joanie Lepage, 32, of Les Cèdres, was arrested Aug. 21, long before Mirshahi’s body was found and she was charged with first-degree murder, two counts forcible confinement and being an accomplice after the fact to Mirshahi’s murder.
Earlier this week, the Sûreté du Quebec announced that it arrested Darius Perry, 27, and Nickeal Hickey, 26, as suspects in the kidnappings and Mirshahi’s murder.
Lepage has been held at a detention centre in Laval and, on Nov. 15, she presented a request at the Valleyfield courthouse asking that she be released while her case is pending. A hearing before a Superior Court judge has been scheduled to be heard at the Montreal courthouse in December.
In her written request, Lepage’s lawyer Patrick Davis says that, based on the evidence divulged to him so far, on June 21 someone asked her to “lend her house to individuals and she supplied the individuals with food.”
“While the substantive infraction of murder was carried out, (Lepage) had left the residence and was a witness to nothing,” Davis wrote, adding that Lepage did not know the homicide victim or the three other people who were kidnapped.
The attorney also wrote that when she was arrested, Lepage collaborated with the police and gave them a statement.
In a statement attached to her request, Lepage wrote that she lost her job after she was arrested. She also wrote that she has a job waiting for her if she is released and that she plans to live with family.
Before he was kidnapped, Mirshahi was the subject of a lengthy investigation by the Autorité des marchés financiers, Quebec’s investment regulator. The probe began in 2021. In July 2024, a decision was made extending blocking orders related to Mirshahi, a company and two other individuals that placed a “ban on carrying out any activity as a broker or investment adviser, ban on securities transactions and orders for the withdrawal of publications on social media and the withdrawal of the name of the AMF.”
One of the decisions made by the AMF’s tribunal related to the case describes Mirshahi as the owner and operator of a private group called Crypto Paradise Island.