Attorney Richard Lehman Sues Panama for Human Rights Abuses in $50 Million Food Aid Case

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Richard Lehman, a Florida attorney who was falsely charged with murder and over a dozen other crimes in Panama for his efforts to defend a $50 million food aid donation, recently filed a human rights lawsuit against the country with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Organization of American States).

“Panama continues to foster an atmosphere of corruption in the legal system which has caused it to be in violation of several human rights treaties,” said Lehman, a tax attorney and executor of the estate of Wilson Lucom, an American expatriate who died in Panama in 2006. “Not only have my human rights been violated, but the largest private donation ever made in Panama’s history is now at risk of vanishing completely.”

Lehman has spent the last two and a half years – and over $2 million of his own money – defending Lucom’s legally sanctioned will in Panama, which gave a $50 million donation to prevent childhood malnutrition. Since 2006, this money has been blocked by an influential family (which produced two former presidents), and corrupt government actions.

As executor of the estate, Lehman has been the target of numerous illegal actions because he is the last remaining obstacle to the family’s claim on the entire Lucom fortune. These include:

• Falsely arrested without charges on Feb. 6th and held under armed guard for 15 hours in an airport police detention center. (This arrest ignored the Panama Supreme Court’s weeks-old ruling that cleared Lehman of all charges in the case.)
• Falsely charged with murder, extortion and 12 other crimes.
• Five illegal arrest warrants issued against him.
• Illegally listed on Interpol’s “Red Notice Alert” using expired legal documents issued from a private law firm.
• Blocked from re-entering Panama to defend the case for over a year and a half.

A new national charity (Fundacion de Apoyo a Los Ninos Pobres de Panama) has been established to distribute Lucom’s donation – if it is released by the courts. The money is badly needed in Panama. According to UNICEF, it's one of two Central American countries to experience a rise in childhood malnutrition. One in five children is affected, and hundreds die each year.

Learn more at www.lucomchildren.com

Boca attorney in international showdown

BOCA RATON, FL -- Richard Lehman is a tax attorney in a small corner office overflowing with paperwork and right now he's preparing to sue the nation of Panama for violating his human rights.

"This is what can be done under a judicial system gone wild," says Lehman.

Lehman had a wealthy client, Wilson Lucom who lived in Panama and who had cut his wife's children out of his will.

Instead, Lucom had decided to donate 50-million dollars to the starving children of Panama.

When Lehman went there to execute the will however, the attorney was charged with the murder of Wilson Lucom.

"Can you imagine waking up and your lawyer calls and says 'Guess what they just accused you of murdering Mr. Lucom, who's 89-years old, in the hospital, who was hooked up to tubs and died."

Since 2006, Lehman has been falsely charged with dozens of crimes in Panama, from murder to extortion.

He's even been named by Interpol as one of their most wanted. All of this he says started because Lucom's family in Panama has produced two former presidents of the nation and they want that money.

He says they are creating false criminal charges in an effort to prevent the will from being executed.

Even though all of the charges had been dropped against him for lack of evidence in February Lehman was still arrested, and held at gunpoint for 14-hours.

"You were scared?" asks Holmes.

"S--t, yeah I was scared," says Lehman.

He was detained in a hotel for five days and was only able to get out through a border town and cross into Costa Rica.

All this because a powerful family thinks where there's a will there's a way, and an attorney and the starving children of Panama are paying the price.

"You can't stop somebody from being a fiduciary across borders by using criminal laws against them. What kind of world would you have?"

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