Legal case clouding Panama/U.S. commerce
(lavozcolorado.com) Half of Panama’s population of children under the age of five is in grave danger of death from malnutrition. The country’s staggering 40 percent poverty rate is one of the worst in Central America.
The late Wilson Lucom reportedly left $50 million to a trust intended to aid these starving children according to a secret will revealed upon his death in 2006. Lucom’s Panamanian wife Hilda and her children from a previous marriage are contesting the will and over two years of legal haggling between the two parties has not resulted in the resolution of the case.
So far lower courts have ruled twice in favor of Richard Lehman, executor of Lucom’s estate, but the Supreme Court of Panama has agreed to hear the case amid charges of illegal tactics and corruption on both sides. Accusations and allegations fly back and forth as a reputedly dysfunctional system of justice attempts to deal with a weighty matter with far-reaching implications.
Hilda Lucom, now 83, is related to two of the former presidents of the canal-divided country once ruled by the infamous Manuel Antonio Noriega. The influential Avila family to which she belongs owns the country’s major newspaper and is part of the ruling elite of direct Spanish lineage.
Recently the current expansion of the canal has brought in many U.S. contracts and a lot of investment. The appropriation of the 7,000-acre Pacific beachfront ranch bought by Lucom, a former aide to Edward R. Stettinius Jr., secretary of state under President Roosevelt, would put a chill on further business ventures.
Hector Avila, a crusader for the poor, lead a march on the Panama Supreme Court Building in May of 2008 demanding Lucom’s will be honored. A week later he barely survived an assassin’s bullet.
Florida Tax Lawyer Lehman was arrested and held under false pretenses for months as a direct result of his attempts to get the case through the courts. A recent report by Panama’s National Transparency Commission concluded there was a systematic abuse of the criminal legal system to resolve civil cases by threats, terror or the personal and financial ruin of opponents. It revealed a legal system where a single lawyer filed more than 13 fraudulent criminal allegations against Lehman over the course of one year – accusing him of crimes he never committed. Further, two illegal arrest warrants were issued against Lehman along with two illegal indictments.
While the courts wrangle over the outcome of this probate battle, Lucom’s property has appreciated to the eventual winner’s benefit – it was valued at over $80 million last June.
Concerned U.S. business owners should contact their congressional and senatorial representatives and inquire why U.S. citizens and business interests in Panama are not being protected.
Interested parties may call or write the U.S. Ambassador in Panama, Barbara Stephenson, 011-507-207-7000, general email panamaweb@state.go.
(Sources: TIME, New York Times, Report to the Attorney General of Panama)
