U.S. Attorney Warns That Wilson Lucom’s $100 Million Donation to Children’s Charities in Panama At Risk of Vanishing, Thanks to Theft and Corruption
BOCA RATON, FL - The largest donation ever made in the history of Panama is on the verge of disappearing, thanks to an incredible case of corruption and government malfeasance in this Central American country.In 2006, Wilson Lucom, an American expatriate, willed the bulk of his estate – now estimated to be worth over $100 million – to be donated to help eradicate hunger-related deaths among poor children in Panama. However, a corrupt legal system and the refusal of the government to intervene has allowed this donation to be delayed for over two years by a multitude of frivolous lawsuits, while the family of Lucom’s widow, Hilda Arias, and their team of lawyers have launched a methodical effort to steal and partition the estate.
“The Wilson Lucom case is the most remarkable example of injustice I have ever seen in my three decades of practicing international law,” said Richard S. Lehman, a Florida-based attorney who serves as chief executor of the Lucom estate. “This country will never outlive the shame it deserves if the Arias family and their lawyers are allowed to steal this money from the poor children of Panama.”
After more than a year of being kept out of the country, threatened with arrest, being listed on Interpol’s red notice alert as a dangerous criminal and having to take extraordinary methods to stop the theft of over six million dollars in his client’s assets, Lehman has recently discovered that the Arias family, its lawyers, an affiliated real estate group and several California-based companies have been secretly destroying the only item of value still left in the multi-million dollar estate that was supposed to be donated to children’s charities – the 7,200 acre Hacienda Santa Monica.
This highly coveted parcel of land, located one hour outside of Panama City on the west coast, with roughly three miles of beachfront property, was appraised as high as $144 million by the formal administrator in the case.
During the two years that the Wilson Lucom will dispute has continued in the Panamanian courts, 100 acres of beachfront property in the Hacienda Santa Monica have been secretly partitioned – using a clever ploy involving several fishermen who were told to claim tenant rights – and sold to several California investment groups. These land sales are illegal, but nonetheless they will wreck the value of the estate and lead to years of litigation to resolve the estate’s true ownership rights. The partitioned hacienda will also prevent the original developer from continuing with plans to buy the property, in which the proceeds would have gone to charity – either in full, or by incorporating a lifetime real estate tax on the developed properties.
The multi-million dollar Lucom estate is now “hanging by a thread,” according to Lehman, as it is on the verge of becoming completely worthless. These illegal land sales could ruin any chance for the estate to donate millions of dollars, as Lucom wished, to the “poor children of Panama.”
Childhood malnutrition is a major problem in Panama, and this multi-million dollar donation is badly needed. According to UNICEF:
- Panama is one of two Central American countries that have experienced a significant rise in childhood malnutrition in recent years
- Roughly 19-percent of kids are affected
- More than half of indigenous children are severely underweight
- More than half of children under five live in poverty
- 2,000 children under the age of five die each year
More information at www.LucomChildren.com
About Richard Lehman
A former senior attorney for the IRS, Richard Lehman is a prominent U.S. attorney specializing in taxation and international law. In addition to U.S. law, Lehman is an expert on Panama's complicated and problematic legal system. Lehman is a graduate of Georgetown Law School and has a master's degree in taxation from NYU. Web site: www.lehmantaxlaw.com .
2 comments:
On the beach of Coclé, where the Anton river comes meets the ocean, the waters of the river mouth have created a long lagoon and a peninsula that throws itself on the west ,parallel to the coast. They call it Las Uvas. It is possible to access it ,during low tide, via the beach from Juan Hombrón, but otherwise, it is not accessible by land.
Since it has neither drinking water nor irrigation and agricultural potential, it had no value until the fever of the tourist development came to the area of Farallón. In the summer of 2007, a person called Sonia Álvarez offered to buy possessory rights in Las Uvas for $ 3.00 per square meter. Immediately, she found local fishermen caliming that they had Rights Of Possession over the land.
In June, 2007 Álvarez, Alberto Sudarsky, Roberto Homsany, and Henry Lebowitz, requested to buy 31.6 hectares of the peninsula to the State making a formal, written request (as per protocol) at the Department of Economy and Finance . Their request mentioned as motive “a project of " country-style villa ecotourism project” and it was accompanied by 32 “contracts of sale of the Rights of Possession of the resident inhabitants of the area” and “an agreement signed by the holders of these property Rights of Possession, who have been inhabiting them for 39 years”.
When La Estrella visited the peninsula, on November 13, it was desert. Seagulls were patrolling the smooth sea. The only human element was a rancho of four posts with tin roof bent from the breeze. To imagine 32 supposed inhabitants needed a poet's imagination.
Having road access to the property is a requisite so that Cadaster grants title by means of Rights of Possession. Be that as it may, the purchase request included a letter of the mayor of Anton, Roger Ríos, who was requesting from Hacienda Santa Mónica “a road servitude (right of pass) to lead to the peninsula of Las Uvas”.
Hacienda Santa Mónica is one of the most beautiful properties of Central America - approximately 3,000 hectares that spread from the Inter-American highway down to the ocean. It was created by combining land from five farms by president Harmodio Arias Madrid. In it he developed rice and bred cattle . He then turned it over to his son Gilberto Arias Guardia, and then to his grandchildren. They sold it to the second mother's second husband , Wilson Lucom. Lucom paid the mortgages and set the farm to produce, but in 2005 he sold it so that it was the site of the first “Signature City” of Latin America.
"Signature Cities" are communities designed to serve simultaneously as esidential, commercial and recreational. The most out-standing example is Isla Palma of the United Arab Emirates.
The project, which will be called Grand Panama and which will cost $3 billions, will feature a five -star hotel, a marina, four golf courses, 9,700 residences, and a 400,000 square meters of shopping center.
It will generate 10,000 jobs during the phase of construction and 5,000 permanent jobs. It will give incalculable profits to the region and the country.
Lucom accepted a first payment of half a million dollars, but he died in June, 2006 before finishing the buying and selling. In his testament he left an apartment of $ 1 million and a million dollar anuity to his widow, but he directed the buldge of his assets to a foundation dedicated to to feeding children in need in Panama. The widow has urged to annul the testament, and Santa Monica, the principal part of the executrix, has remained tangled in the succession dispute, under the administration of lawyer Marta Cañola, named by the Judge of theFifth Circuit.
When Grand Panama International paid half a million to buy Santa Monica, they hired Meneren Corporation of Denver USA, to develop and administer the project. Meneren must wait for the conclusion of the judgment of succession to complete the buying and selling with the winner,of the case and has remained alert to the real property swaying in Panama. On May 11 of the present year Meneren inspector, Steve Guthrie, received an e-mail of a broker in Panama offering him area in the beach close to Juan Hombrón. On having investigated, Guthrie discovered that Las Uvas were being marketed even though they and the peninsula were part of the "Signature City" property.
“They were trying to sell to us land that our bosses already were ready to buy!”, he said to La Estrella. “With the down payment of half a million dollars, he lagoon is where we think to put the marina, and without these kilometers of beach the property does not serve for the project”.
http://tropiland.blogspot.com/2008/12/another-rights-of-possession-saga-when.html
La Estrella article in spanish:
http://laestrella.com.pa/mensual/2008/12/15/contenido/40154.asp
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