The Bulgarian Job

Kocankov says his arrest happened because of a series of blunders and misunderstandings, like when he filed the "wrong" first page of the will and filed a witness affidavit containing false information.

"If I have to call myself an idiot, I will," he says. "But no crime was intended. No crime was committed."

Kocankov claims that he helped prepare the will for probate court after Andreev found it among Gadzanov's belongings. First, it needed a translation into English.

But having signed the will, Kocankov says, he knew it would be "unethical" for him to perform the translation. So he asked his then-girlfriend's 18-year-old son, Ilkov, to write up the official interpretation.

Ilkov's signed translation contains no mention of his relationship with Kocankov, who was stumped when asked why this method was any more ethical than doing it himself.

Ethics aside, if Ilkov's knowledge of Bulgarian was trustworthy enough to handle such an important task, it makes little sense that Ilkov would mistranslate the document during the traffic stop by Britt.

At the request of New Times, Kocankov uses his mobile phone to call Ilkov, who is now — since Kocankov married his mother — Kocankov's stepson.

Ilkov explains he's "not completely fluent" in his native language. He says it took nearly two weeks, with the help of a dictionary and Kocankov's proofreading, to complete the written translation of the alleged will. He claims that's why, when Britt showed him the document first filed with the court — the one with the wrong first page — he wasn't able to instantly see a problem. That is, his lack of linguistic skills, plus the fact that the cops were "scaring" him, caused him to fail Britt's test.

"I was so nervous I just initialed it," Ilkov says. "The part I matched up was close."

Actually, it wasn't.

Kocankov's credibility, meanwhile, sinks lower when he discusses the human-smuggling allegations in Britt's report. After his arrest, Kocankov admitted to Britt that he had been jailed in Mexico in 2004 with a group of Bulgarian immigrants.

Britt says Mexican police suspected Kocankov of preparing to smuggle the immigrants across the Arizona-Mexico border.

Kocankov tells New Times the smuggling allegations against him are just more of Britt's lies. He says he doesn't know why the Mexican police targeted him.

Then there's Andreev and his wife, Ann.

Andreev looks like a stereotypical KGB agent: stout, with a thick neck and broad face. He complains about his arthritis and sore legs. But he's still got some fight in him, literally. He pleaded guilty last month to aggravated assault following a scuffle with a fellow airport limo driver; he says the other guy started the fight.

Andreev married his wife in the mid-1990s and met Gadzanov, a friend of hers, soon after. His and Gadzanov's relationship was "based on trust," he says. He speaks of their camping trips to the Grand Canyon and other places. He talks about one of Gadzanov's former girlfriends. He says he and Gadzanov were planning a visit to Bulgaria.

In a line worthy of the movie Borat, Andreev says he'll have to go alone to fulfill his friend's wish of building a small drinking fountain in his hometown.

Far contrary to the hatred Lorraine Smith says Louie felt for Ann Andreev, Ann gushes that she was like a sister to Gadzanov. She says she met him in Chicago in 1976, when she first came to this country.

Ann testified to as much in court, though Deputy County Attorney Tammara Wright — whose job it was to stop the Andreevs from obtaining the estate — never revealed what kind of relationship Gadzanov had with his real sisters and possible heirs in Bulgaria.

Ann Andreev's testimony during the probate hearings provided comic relief to the otherwise convoluted and technical court case involving an alleged last will and testament scrawled out in Bulgarian.

On one occasion, Wright asked Ann Andreev when she'd given the documents she found in Gadzanov's apartment to her lawyer. Ann said she couldn't remember. Wright asked her to at least name the month.

"My head hurts," Ann said.

"You have no idea?" the prosecutor asked.

"My head hurts real bad," Ann muttered. "I don't know."

Ann Andreev did tell the court she had been in the country for 30 years and stopped working as a laundry supervisor after undergoing heart surgery in 1996. Wright asked her if that means she worked from 1976 to 1996.

"I don't know if it's '96 or not," Ann Andreev testifies. "Ninety — or 80-something."

Her husband, Andy Andreev, tells New Times he fled Bulgaria as a refugee from the oppressive Communist government, that his experience with the Soviet regime makes him wary of police.

His wariness might also come from his past legal troubles.

Asked to elaborate on why he spent 13 years in prison — a fact presented during the hearings — Andreev says it was a long time ago and isn't relevant to anything concerning Gadzanov's estate. Andreev says his friend Louie knew about his 1970 conviction for manslaughter in Bulgaria but didn't worry about it.

"I've been here 17 years," he says, "and I don't have a problem in the country."