WEST JORDAN — The wife of a murdered Utah Valley State College hockey coach has filed a lawsuit seeking more than $19 million, claiming that her husband was killed by a hired hitman.
Christopher Eugene Wright was convicted of murdering Ken Dolezsar and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. Dolezsar was shot and killed in November of 2007 in the parking lot of a Sandy Village Inn restaurant.
But Dolezsar's wife is now suing a man named David Novak, who runs a consulting company for those in federal prison, claiming he hired someone to kill her husband when he didn't follow through on some of his funding commitments.
Dolezsar's wife, Leslie Dee Mower, said she went to federal prison in 2007 after she and an ex-husband were convicted of tax evasion. Both she and her former spouse were contacted by Novak, who told them he could get one or both of their sentences commuted from prison.
Mower states that she immediately disliked Novak and was going to decline his offer, but changed her mind at the urging of one of her attorneys. She and her ex-husband each gave the man $25,000. She vowed to never work with the man again and avoided his phone calls by passing them to Dolezsar, who began to communicate with Novak.
But over time, the lawsuit states, Dolezsar withdrew what added up to more than $1.7 million from Mower's account to fund a documentary film Novak was working on based on his own experience in federal prison. Mower states that far from authorizing these transactions, she had adamantly opposed any contact with Novak.
The lawsuit asserts that Novak was never going to produce the film, but used the funds to pay for restitution he owed in his federal mail fraud case and outstanding loan payments on home property.
Mower states in the lawsuit that Novak introduced Dolezsar to Wright and arranged a meeting between the two men the day Dolezsar was killed. Mower states that Wright, 35, and Novak met the afternoon of the shooting, and not long after, Novak paid Wright $25,000 and left Utah.
Mower is now suing Novak — who was also implicated in the shooting by Wright's defense attorney during his trial — on a number of grounds, including wrongful death, conspiracy, breach of contract and fraud and is asking for damages in the amount of $19.7 million.
Wright's wife, Bianca Pearman-Brooks, has long proclaimed his innocence and in an interview with the Deseret News said she also suspects Novak in the murder. She claims her husband could not have killed anyone that day because he was home sick with food poisoning.
Novak was interviewed by police after Dolezsar's killing but disappeared after Wright was arrested. His current whereabouts are unknown.
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