More than a month after a funeral was held for Javad Heydary, the case surrounding the embattled Toronto lawyer and his boutique firms is still being held up by a nagging question: Is he really dead?

A much-anticipated report by the Law Society of Upper Canada, presented in Ontario Superior Court on Monday, offers a glimpse into how more than $3 million belonging to a Mississauga couple was siphoned out of Heydary Hamilton’s trust account.

However, the status of the lawyer at the centre of the scandal remains somewhat less clear. Although the regulator’s directory lists the lawyer as “deceased,” the manager of trustee services told the court the body repatriated from Iran in December “was difficult to identify with 100 per cent certainty.”

Margaret Cowtan said three “relatively independent individuals” identified the remains, and provided affidavits to the law society following the funeral service and burial in Richmond Hill.

“All indicated to some degree or another that the body belonged to (Heydary),” she told the court.

However, Cowtan said they could not be certain “because the body had not been embalmed in a manner consistent with North America.”

Heydary, 49, was best known for the lawsuit he launched on behalf of investors in the Trump International Hotel & Tower.

The law society received word in mid-December that his body had been repatriated from his native Iran, where he had reportedly fled amid allegations of missing money.

A source previously told the Star Heydary’s wife visited his downtown Toronto offices on Nov. 21, and informed his associates that her husband was dead. The program distributed at his funeral listed his date of death as Nov. 24.

In court on Monday, Justice Julie Thorburn suggested that the law society share the affidavits with the lawyer representing the Mississauga couple whose missing millions triggered the investigation into Heydary.

“We can’t follow-up now if we’re in the dark about who those individuals are,” Thorburn said. “I think it’s important.”

Lawyer Mark Adilman, who is representing Hasan and Samira Abuzour, said he is not yet satisfied that Heydary is dead.

“Right now, I don’t have enough information to say,” he said in an interview.

The law society did not grant the Star’s request on Monday for copies of the affidavits or provide the names of those who identified Heydary.

When asked why more scientific means were not used to identify the body, Cowtan told the Star the regulator “does not have the power to declare people dead or alive or obtain DNA evidence.”

Cowtan told the court that counsel for the Heydary family arranged for the body to be identified.

The report on the firm’s financial records did not contain much in the way of good news for the Abuzours, who have been fighting for months to retrieve a $3.6-million settlement that was supposedly being held in trust at Heydary Hamilton.

According to the report submitted in court, beginning in July 2012, more than $2.7 million was transferred from Heydary Hamilton’s trust account to the firm’s general account to cover operating expenses.

Revenue generated by Heydary Hamilton and Heydary’s other firms was “nowhere near sufficient” to pay for operating expenses, which averaged $500,000 per month in 2013, the report concluded.

Money also flowed from the firm’s general account to Red Seal Notary, a company Heydary owned and operated alongside his five law firms. About $200,000 was transferred from Red Seal to Heydary’s personal account in 2013, “although the pattern of these transfers existed for many years prior,” the law society concluded.

The report speculates these funds were used “for personal expenses.” Red Seal could not be reached Monday for comment.

By the time the law society seized control of his practice in late November, Heydary Hamilton’s trust account contained less than $320,000. It should have been holding more than $3.7 million for 62 clients, the report found.

The law society concluded that the trust accounts of Heydary’s four other law firms were not implicated “in the shortages and misapplications.”

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The rented Forest Hill Rd. home where Heydary lived is now listed for lease, at $9,000 per month. A woman who answered the door Monday told the Star his wife, Marjan, was not at home.

Heydary and Heydary Hamilton were found in contempt on Nov. 29 for defying a court order to repay the Abuzours.

With files from Alex Ballingall

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