The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The battle over an alleged Bahamas real estate fraud hit new heights yesterday, as international investors pushed for a summary judgment to recover outlays worth tens of thousands of dollars.

A group of US and Irish investors, in court documents obtained by Tribune Business, are claiming they were deceived into purchasing lots on Long Island for which they never received title deeds confirming their ownership.

They also allege that the sales to them were illegal, as the lots were not in an approved subdivision, thereby violating the Planning and Subdivisions Act 2010.

The four-strong group, headed by US citizen John Brier, are now seeking summary judgment after the ‘sellers’, and their intermediary, breached a March 31, 2015, settlement agreement to reimburse their purchases, leaving them short by a collective $94,000.

But their action, which has been filed in the north Florida federal courts, has been met with counter-allegations of blackmail and extortion by the foreign investors behind the purported real estate scam.

Billy Wayne Davis, who earlier this year ran for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 11th congressional district, and his Long Island Investments vehicle, together with the individual responsible for brokering the settlement, Keith De Cay, are hitting back with allegations they are the victims of a smear campaign.

Separately, they are claiming that Mr Brier created 14 websites, with titles such as BahamasLandFraud.com, to besmirch their reputations, leaving them with no choice but to give in to the alleged ‘blackmail’ and sign the settlement agreement.

This, though, has been vehemently refuted by Mr Brier and his three fellow investors, who point out that Mr De Cay only made the blackmail/extortion claims after he had defaulted on the settlement agreement, and was threatened with legal action.

That March 31, 2015, agreement contains what many observers are likely to view as tantamount to an ‘admission of guilt’ by Mr Davis and his companies.

The document, signed by Mr Davis, contains a clause where he promises “not to engage in any false or deceptive marketing practices at any time in the future as it pertains to selling land or lots in the Bahamas, and that any sales in the future will only be done when in compliance of all relevant laws in the Bahamas”.

This is reinforced by a March 7, 2015, e-mail in which Mr De Cay, negotiating the settlement agreement with Mr Brier and his fellow purchasers, said: “Everyone: The offer from Billy [Davis].

“Everything stops on all sides. No more websites or e-mail wars. Cease pursuing civil and criminal fraud charges against the Davis cabal, with Davis/Jansen agreeing to cease fraudulent sales activities.”

In return, Mr Brier was to remove all “derogatory information” from 14 websites he had set up to attack Mr Davis and call attention to his plight.

Apart from BahamasLandFraud.com, these sites also had names such as BahamasLandInvestment.com; bahamaslandsales.com; LongIslandInvestmentFraud.com; LongIslandLots.com; and LongIslandInvestmentsFraud.com.

The case again highlights how vulnerable the Bahamas’ reputation as a safe, secure destination for real estate and other investments is to being seriously damaged by disputes of this nature.

It also raises questions as to why the authorities, especially the Royal Bahamas Police Force and the Attorney General’s Office, are not more proactive in dealing with them, given the potential harm to the economy and deterrent effect for investors.

Mr Brier told Tribune Business he had contacted both agencies with his complaints, but this appears to have provoked no reaction from either of them to investigate the allegations.

As a result, Mr Brier, and his fellow investors, Eugene Gridnev, an American, and Irish citizens, Mark Murphy and Phila Keane, have sought redress through the US legal system and yesterday’s move to obtain summary judgment.

Detailing events in an accompanying affidavit, Mr Brier alleged:” “In early 2013, I responded to an online advertisement listing undeveloped ocean front lots for sale for $40,000 on Long Island in the Bahamas.

“I was then contacted by a sales agent, Albert Jansen of Coral Gables, Florida, acting on behalf of a company known as Long Islands Investments, owned and operated by Billy Wayne Davis of Crenshaw, Georgia.”

Mr Davis has had a colourful, and controversial, career in relation to Bahamian real estate sales on islands such as Rum Cay and Long Island, featuring in numerous court actions both as plaintiff and defendant.

His name also appeared in a US court case that saw the conviction of a Miami resident, Lawrence Foster, for running an $8 million $8 million scam using Rum Cay real estate.

US federal prosecutors alleged that the land being marketed by Mr Foster was purportedly owned by Sunward Holdings, a company said to be owned by Mr Davis. The prosecutors also suggested that Mr Davis/Sunward never owned the land, but the former subsequently disputed this in an e-mail to Tribune Business.

Mr Brier, meanwhile, alleged that Messrs Davis and Jansen seduced him into the Long Island purchase by saying lot prices would soon increase to $200,000, due to another group investing $20 million into the subdivision’s purchase.

He ultimately paid $40,000 in late May 2013, but “immediately became suspicious” upon receiving a copy of his conveyance, as it “contained numerous material errors, including the incorrect company, project and price”.

Tribune Business has seen a copy of the May 27, 2013, conveyance. While Long Island Investments is named as the vendor throughout, the back page inexplicably lists Sunward Holdings as the ‘seller’.

The purchase price was also listed as $30,000, not $40,000, and the land in question was said to be on Rum Cay, not Long Island.

Mr Brier alleged that the conveyance was also falsely notarised, as he was not present in the Bahamas for the transaction, as it suggests.

“When I confronted the sellers about these inaccuracies, they reassured me that it was just a mistake, but I never received a corrected deed,” he claimed.

Now wary, Mr Brier attempted to offload his investment by placing it with Bahamian realtors to market for sale. None, though, wanted to take it on because the initial sale to him was illegal under the Planning and Subdivisions Act, due to the absence of subdivision approval.

“Eventually, after talking to various third parties, including realtors in the Bahamas, I was informed that the lot should not have been sold because it was not yet part of an approved subdivision,” Mr Brier alleged.

“The sellers never disclosed this information to me prior to the sale, so I tried to get my money back from the sellers, to no avail.”

He continued:“At that point, I believed that I was the victim of a fraudulent land scheme. As such, I took actions to remedy the situation, including purchasing www.BahamasLandSales.com, to warn other potential victims.

“As a result, I was contacted by the other named plaintiffs in this matter (in addition to others) who had been similarly duped. Although I received a deed that appeared invalid on its face, the other plaintiffs did not receive deeds at all.”

Mr Brier said he even contacted former US presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, after the vendors allegedly made “false claims” about his involvement with the project.

He also attempted to get the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) to probe his complaints against Messrs Davis and Jansen, although the Bureau declined to get involved on the grounds of limited resources.

“Since then, I have learned that the ringleader of the sellers, Billy Davis, is a convicted felon and has been named in multiple other lawsuits related to fraudulent land deals in the Bahamas,” Mr Brier alleged.

Mr Davis was convicted in the north Alabama federal court in 1994 for “providing false information on a loan application concerning land he purportedly owned in the Bahamas.

However, in a subsequent letter to Tribune Business, Mr Davis said all his civil rights had been restored after he served due punishment.

Mr Brier, meanwhile, said Messrs Davis and Jansen “finally expressed interest in settling the dispute” in March 2015, alleging that they wanted to end the adverse publicity associated with his website.

Enter Mr De Cay, who negotiated the March 31, 2015, agreement that was signed by the Brier group, himself and Mr Davis.

Emphatically refuting the ‘blackmail’ allegations, Mr Brier claimed: “Contrary to [Mr de Cay’s] allegations, which he made for the first time after we filed this lawsuit, that he was ‘blackmailed’ into entering into the settlement agreement, defendant was actually the one who first approached us about working out a settlement deal, encouraged us to enter into the settlement agreement and spent weeks negotiating a deal before the parties executed the settlement agreement.”

While payments ran smoothly for a while, Mr Brier alleged that “things fell apart” after August 2015, when Mr De Cay’s efforts to sell a condominium to finance the settlement failed.

After both sides agreed to amend the settlement, Mr De Cay also allegedly told the Brier group that he was “supposed to receive additional funds” from Mr Davis to finance the payments, yet that, too, fell through.

With the amended agreement now breached, Mr Brier and his fellow investors filed their north Florida action in exasperation.

“At no time did defendant [Mr De Cay] ever claim that he was a victim of ‘blackmail’ or that the agreements were ‘illegal’ until after we filed a lawsuit to collect the amount defendant owed under the Agreements,” Mr Brie reiterated.

“To the contrary, as reflected in all of the foregoing e-mail communications, the settlement agreement and amended agreement were the product of negotiations that defendant initiated.

“Throughout the negotiations, all parties, including defendant, were aware that the investments were speculative and that subdivision approval was not guaranteed. In fact, defendant was the one privately discussing the deal with the sellers [Messrs Davis and Jansen], and the one who continued to represent to us that the land investments would be very valuable because subdivision approval was imminent.”

Mr Brier further alleged: “We have no knowledge of any other side deals defendant [Mr De Cay] may have had (or still have) with the sellers (or others), and we do not know the status of the subdivision’s approval since defendant stopped providing information after his breach.

“However, defendant’s claim that the land is ‘worthless’ is curious considering he is still asking that we transfer our rights to the lots into his name, even though he never paid us in full for the lots.

“Furthermore after the settlement agreement was breached by the defendant, it was discovered he was advertising a lot for sale in the same project for $130,000 ‘now’ and at over ‘$200,000’ when the ‘subdivision project goes through’.”