The Tribune

“CANADIAN fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been accused of orchestrating a murderous plot against his billionaire neighbour Louis Bacon and lawyer Fred Smith, his chief opponents in an ongoing campaign against development at Nygard Cay, according to court documents filed yesterday.”

This was the lead article in The Tribune on Thursday, March 10, that shocked the nation and has led to charges, counter-charges, and many red-herrings and lies scuttling back and forth across the news pages, both national and international, in the halls of parliament, and particularly in the community for the past 17 days.

The article reported that affidavits detail a year-long investigation into claims that Mr Nygard contracted two criminals to harass, intimidate and cause physical harm and property damage to four directors of the Save The Bays organisation, Rev C B Moss, a government official and several others — including our own business editor.

Save The Bays directors Joseph Darville, Romauld Ferreira, Mr Smith and Mr Bacon and Rev Moss (who is not associated with Save the Bays), have filed a writ in the Supreme Court against Mr Nygard and lawyer Keod Smith. They allege that the defendants orchestrated a two-and-a-half-year campaign of fear and violence to “kill or scare off” activists who Mr Nygard saw as opponents to development plans for his Lyford Cay property.

The Tribune published the story from documents officially filed by Save the Bays in the Supreme Court, which are now on public record. This week the Nygard side released documents of their own for which they wanted equal publication. However, these documents have not been filed in court. As they are not yet on public record they cannot be published. Although The Tribune has made reference to the documents, there can be no publication until they are properly filed by Mr Nygard’s lawyers. If Mr Nygard has confidence in his allegations, we do not understand why his lawyers have not filed them. For us this omission raises many red flags.

As a result, the situation has become a vicious hell hole of hate, lies and mischief, everyone scrambling to pull in their own dirty laundry while trying to deflect suspicion from themselves to someone else. We recommend that both sides file and let the court be the final arbiter as it should be. Whatever is officially filed will be published until then we advise the public to take the innuendos now making the rounds with a grain of salt.

However, what interested us was the comments by Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade, who held a press conference recently to announce that as a result of allegations made by Mr Nygard in video tapes, he had questioned both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

During the press conference, Mr Greenslade seemed not only annoyed, but hurt that his own force had not been alerted to the alleged murder plot involving Nygard, his neighbour Louis Bacon, and others. Mr Greenslade said he received no complaints from anyone in the affidavits now before the courts who claimed that their lives were threatened. He also questioned why it was necessary and even legal to bring in a private investigator to get to the bottom of the strange goings-on, allegedly instigated by Mr Nygard against his neighbour over a piece of property. A disagreement that has grown to such proportions that it has now spilled over into the local community.

For some years, the disagreement between the two neighbours was being played out behind the walls of Lyford Cay. The Tribune reported it, but it had no affect on the community until one of them — and we suspect that it was Mr Nygard decided to share his anger with Bahamians. Obviously, Mr Nygard was playing on the loyalty of Bahamians who had benefitted from his “generosity”.

Then one day we received a letter from a lawyer of hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, founder of Moore Capital Management. The lawyer complained that inserted in The Tribune was a colour sheet with a large photo of Mr Bacon, accusing him of being a member of the Klu-Klux clan — it was a message to stir up hate against Mr Bacon, a gentleman we know by name only. This was news to us. On investigation, we discovered that the allegations were true. Although we had no proof as to who was behind the hate messages — we immediately conjured up visions of Macavity the Mystery Cat – “the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair; For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there!”

Although we were satisfied that we knew our Macavity in this case, rather than wasting our time in a search, we wrote a stiff editorial and sent an even stiffer message to our vendors. Macavity lay low for some time, but about a year later his anger got the better of him and The Tribune was again used as the vehicle to spread his hate. Again we wrote an editorial and dealt with the guilty vendors.

We believe Commissioner Greenslade when he said that nothing of a murderous nature was brought to his attention in any of the affidavits filed.

And without asking any questions we understand why the local police were not involved. The inference of why the threatened Bahamians took matters into their own hands can be found in a letter written in desperation to the Police Commissioner on May 5, 2015, from the law firm of Callenders. The letter outlined the hate rallies and threats that the police were asked to investigate, but never did. Plea followed plea to find out who was behind the hate rallies that they feared would make them the targets of racially motivated crime. Although the police promised to get back to them, as far as those who were being attacked were concerned nothing was done.

Eventually they realised that they would have to protect themselves, and so the search for the instigator started from within their own group. FNM chairman Michael Pintard, who has been a member of the environmental group for some time, started — as any newspaper reporter would do — to ask questions. He went from person to person, each leading nearer and nearer to those who claimed that they were the “hit” men involved. They were shocked to discover that murder plots were included — this they did not know at the time they complained to the Commissioner. Now the rumour mongers want to pillory Mr Pintard. Until otherwise proven — and certainly not with unfiled documents — we consider Mr Pintard a true patriot.

If the other side has contrary evidence, then hurry up and file — because as long as these allegations are unfiled we remain suspicious of their veracity.

The public would be wise to take all that is now being spewed with a grain of salt. It is only natural that the guilty are running for cover and trying to deflect suspicion from themselves.

Again we warn — caveat emptor — buyer beware - we are dealing with evil.