The Tribune

• Ordered disbarred over $193k Rum Cay deal

• Transaction marred by fraud, forgery claims

• Complaint takes over 11 years to be resolved

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A former FNM election candidate, already ruled a bankrupt, now faces being disbarred from the legal profession over a $192,870 Rum Cay land deal that was plagued by claims of fraud and forgery.

Raymond Rolle, who failed in both attempts to become Englerston’s MP in 2007 and 2017, was found by the Bahamas Bar Association’s Disciplinary Tribunal to have committed “a stark failure” in not providing the information and accounting sought by his client over a transaction that took place 16 years ago.

The Tribunal, headed by Supreme Court justice, Renae McKay, in a February 15, 2023, ruling ordered that Mr Rolle “be struck from the roll” despite his assertion that the transaction’s sales agreement had been “doctored” by a former employee without his involvement or knowledge. The seller’s secretary also alleged that he never signed the sales contract, and claimed his signature was forged.

The dispute has its roots in the land speculation orgy that enveloped much of Rum Cay in the early part of this century as various parties, claiming that their ownership rights could be traced to the late Effie Knowles estate, divided up the island’s real estate and sold off lots to foreign buyers who were unaware that the title was questionable.

Michael Preuss, an expatriate investor, was one of these buyers who agreed to acquire Lot 8A from Rum Cay Ventures, one of the entities engaged in this land speculation. Reports from the time identified the company’s owners as American citizens, Michael Fothergill and Steve Sweitzer, the former having been convicted of money laundering and bank fraud in Florida in 2002.

The purchase price was fixed at $180,000, and Mr Rolle acted for both the buyer and Rum Cay Ventures with the permission of both sides. A total $192,870 was transferred by Mr Preuss to Mr Rolle and his law firm, Raymond A. Rolle & Co, to cover both the purchase price and an additional $12,870 in closing costs such as Stamp Tax and legal fees.

The Bar’s Disciplinary Tribunal, in its ruling, found that the funds “were paid by various wire transfers between February and March 2007 to the attorney’s firm to allow the completion of the transaction to take place. The closing costs are as reflected in the completion statement issued from the attorney dated January 25, 2007. No item of the closing costs is in dispute. The attorney does not deny that all of the requisite funds were received by the firm.

“The complainant (Mr Preuss) avers that the attorney (Mr Rolle) failed to complete a real estate transaction, failed to properly advise on title and failed to return funds to the complainant. The attorney counters that the transaction closed and the seller received the proceeds of sale,” the ruling added.

“However, there is alleged to have been misconduct in the nature of fraud within the attorney’s firm, resulting in the forgery of signatures on conveyance documents, resulting in the title being questioned by the complainant. The Attorney does not deny this and offered to ‘redo’ the conveyance, but the vendor company (Rum Cay Ventures) no longer exists and cannot be therefore redone.”

Mr Preuss alleged that he never received a copy of the sales contract, or final conveyance, from Mr Rolle’s office despite making multiple requests. It was only three years after the deal was completed, in 2010, that he received the relevant documents from John Demming, who claimed to have acquired Rum Cay Ventures and the rights to the company, “and immediately became aware of certain irregularities”.

“The complainant avers that the signature below his on the conveyance document is not anyone known to him, nor was that person present when he signed it. In making further inquiries he was made aware that the secretary of the vendor company, one Mike Fothergill, stated that he never signed the sales contract and that the signature on same was not his,” the disciplinary tribunal recorded.

“The Tribunal’s attention was drawn to the e-mail dated June 11, 2011, from Mike Fothergill to the complainant which contains information germane to this matter. Among other things, including that he was erroneously named as the president of the vendor company, Mr Fothergill confirms that ‘the signature purported to be Mike Fothergill’s on the conveyance from Rum Cay Ventures to you is not mine; it is a forgery’.

“He goes on to attribute the forgery to Akera Stubbs, and observes that she is being pursued legally, and that it appears that she ‘removed your original conveyance from Raymond Rolle’s office when she was terminated’.” The end result was that Mr Preuss did not have secure, proper title to his Rum Cay property due to the absence of a valid conveyance despite the purchase price and closing costs being paid. The vendor’s dissolution made obtaining a new conveyance impossible.

Mr Preuss lodged his formal complaint against Mr Rolle to the Bar Council’s secretary on July 18, 2011 - more than 11-and-a-half years ago. He began Supreme Court proceedings against Mr Rolle the following year, eventually obtaining a default judgment, and the attorney’s failure to pay ultimately saw him “ajudged a bankrupt” in 2021, just over four years after he stood for election to Parliament as an FNM candidate.

Tribune Business sought to contact Mr Rolle for comment via the phone numbers provided on the Bar Association’s website, but these just rang out and were not answered. An e-mail sent to the address provided was not responded to. Multiple sources, some close to the FNM, confirmed he was the party’s former Englerston candidate. However, the length of time it has taken to resolve Mr Preuss’ complaint has caused concern for some.

“How ridiculous can it get?” one attorney, speaking on condition of anonymity, of the 11-plus years taken to address the matter. “It’s taken more than ten years to deal with it. They’re going to appeal, and until the appeal is heard it’s an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ type of thing that will drag on forever.”

Mr Rolle, in responding to Mr Preuss’ complaint, said “it appears that the executed agreement for sale between the parties may have been doctored by my former employee, Akera Stubbs”. He added that the funds received from Mr Preuss were applied correctly, and that Rum Cay Ventures stood ready to “correct any deficiencies” with the conveyance.

The attorney also sought to blame Mr Preuss for any delay in completing the deal because he purportedly never supplied the documents needed to obtain the necessary International Persons Landholding Act permits from the Investments Board. Without those permits, Mr Rolle said the buyer’s title would not be secured.

The Tribunal, in its verdict, found “it is clear that there were some irregular dealings by [Ms Stubbs] which affected the efficacy of the closing and may have impacted the validity of the documents”. And, while Mr Rolle had asserted that the conveyance was “redone”, the document produced in evidence was not stamped and raised questions as to whether the required Stamp Duty had been paid.

“The second noteworthy point is that the conveyance is purportedly executed by Mike Fothergill as president - something Mr Fothergill already indicated to the complainant in an e-mail he not only did not sign but erroneously is titled thereon as president when in fact he is not and never was. This is clearly a copy of the conveyance which was the subject of forgery and misconduct by the attorney’s employee,” the Tribunal added.

“The Tribunal does not accept the position of the attorney [Mr Rolle] that the failure to produce the conveyance is the result of wrongdoings of his employee. The duty of every attorney is to check and oversee any legal or paralegal work promulgated by an employee.

“The conveyance erroneously names someone as president who is not. This alone can affect the validity of a document. That the attorney would not have checked and confirmed the signatures as belonging to Mike Fothergill is an indication that the attorney was not conducting the necessary oversight to satisfy the standard of care required by him or imposed by the rules.”

As for the failure to provide the permit information, the Tribunal said there was no evidence that a properly executed conveyance existed at that point or that Mr Rolle had informed Mr Preuss of the documents required. And it found that Mr Rolle would have been aware in late June 2011 that Rum Cay Ventures no longer existed, thus making it extremely hard to redo the conveyance.

“This matter has been outstanding from 2007. The evidence of the purchaser is that the attorney did not communicate with him and has never directly provided the information sought, and that he only obtained a copy of the counter executed agreement and the conveyance documents from Mr. Demming in 2010. An attorney’s duty to his client is to communicate, provide information and accounting etc, and the attorney’s failure in this regard is a stark one,” the Tribunal said.

With no evidence that Mr Rolle has sought to make good the loss, or account for the funds, the Tribunal ruled that “the fact that the attorney allowed documents to be promulgated which contained errors and forged signatures, failed to procure his client’s consent before remitting closing funds, failed to account for the payment of Stamp taxes placed in his care, compounded by the length of time that has elapsed with the complete failure to mitigate by the attorney and/or allowing himself to have a judgment against him and allowing himself to become adjudged a bankrupt, constitute breaches...... of the most serious and egregious sort”.

Besides Justice McKay, the other disciplinary tribunal members were Stephanie Unwala, Alexander Maillis and James Bain. The Bar’s marshalls were Sean Moree, of McKinney, Bancroft & Hughes, and Peteche Bethell.