A Toronto real estate agent who borrowed $95,000 from a woman he was finding a tenant for, says that his wife has given the woman's real estate lawyer $5,000 — one day after CBC Toronto published a story about the woman's plight.

Chaim "Howard" Smilovici said his wife will also pay Rita Fulciniti back the remaining $90,000 he borrowed in February once the deal closes to sell his wife's Bathurst Street condo.

"I am not a thief," Smilovici told CBC Toronto. "My wife had nothing to do with it but is helping make restitution."

Enio Zeppieri of Zeppieri and Associates — the law firm that represented Fulciniti in the condo deal that fell through — confirmed that he'd received a $5,000 bank draft from Smilovici's wife Thursday afternoon.

When CBC Toronto reached out to Rita Fulciniti she didn't know about the payment yet.

"I don't want $5,000," she said. "He owes me all the interest, everything he put me out up until the day he pays me back all of it."

In June 2015, Fulciniti signed a loan agreement with Smilovici through his company, Maximum Sports Management Group Inc. The contract stipulated she would be repaid in full the $95,000 she loaned him with a $5,000 cash bonus and an annual 12 per cent return on the loan.

Until Thursday, Smilovici had not paid back any of the loan.

Fulciniti says she lost the condo she had put a down payment on near Bloor Street and Islington Avenue after Smilovici didn't pay back the money — which she says is her life savings — and she no longer had the funds to close the deal. She's now living in a homeless shelter

Smilovici says the situation and ensuing publicity has "devastated my family," adding what Fulciniti "gave is going to be given back."

Fulciniti, who went through what she describes as "a messy divorce" and struggled with personal issues, still hopes to recoup the $42,000 deposit she forfeited when she was unable to close the condo deal.