The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The owner of a beach club demolished by the Bimini Bay Resort’s developer has been given permission to apply to commit its principal, Gerardo Capo, and other executives to Fox Hill prison for alleged contempt of court.

Supreme Court documents obtained by Tribune Business reveal that Garrick Edwards, the entertainment owner/promoter behind the Sakara Beach Club, is alleging that the contempt arose from his property being destroyed while both sides were awaiting a Supreme Court judgment.

Apart from seeking a court order committing Mr Capo and his fellow RAV Bahamas and Bimini Bay Resort Management directors to Fox Hill, Mr Edwards is demanding $8.456 million in damages.

And he is also seeking a Court Order barring RAV Bahamas and its affiliates from building any structure on the former Sakara premises, or using it to operate a business.

Mr Edwards, in a December 4, 2013, affidavit, claimed he had lost his initial $1.3 million investment, and potential annual profits worth $1.5 million, as a result of Sakara’s alleged demolition.

And he alleged that the club’s demolition was designed to pave the way for RAV’s new partner, the Genting-owned Resorts World Bimini, to operate its own food and beverage facility - which opened two days after Sakara’s destruction.

“With the demolition of Sakara, my source of income and significant investment has also been destroyed, along with that of the 15 employees who worked there since its inception,” Mr Edwards alleged.

“Along with the actual structure of Sakara Beach Club being demolished, all of the equipment, utensils and inventory used to manage and operate Sakara are also destroyed or unaccounted for.”

Mr Edwards alleged that a “conservative” financial model produced by accountants had estimated Sakara would generate $1.5 million in annual net profits.

“Additionally, we invested approximately $1.298 million on the front end as per the lease agreement for construction, finishings, point of sale system, landscaping and shipping/handling ($150,000),” he added.

“Our missing inventory, other equipment, additional construction and equipment ($40,000), start-up costs for operators ($150,000), housing in Bimini Bay for operators ($858,000) and further injections for operations to cover withheld funds by RAV Bahamas has all gone to naught.”

Mr Edwards and Bimini Bay’s developers had entered into a lease agreement, whereby Sakara would operate from the resort premises and pay rent for doing so, on December 31, 2011.

Yet RAV Bahamas, in March 2013, filed a Supreme Court action seeking a declaration that the Sakara lease was “null and void”, and that Mr Edwards had to vacate the premises.

The grounds for the application were that Mr Edwards, as a foreign investor, had failed to obtain all the necessary government approvals and permits, and was thus in non-compliance with the International Persons Landholding Act.

The matter was heard before Chief Justice Sir Michael Barnett on May 31, 2013, with RAV Bahamas’ offers to ‘buy out’ the lease deemed unacceptable by Mr Edwards.

One meeting, between Mr Edwards and Mr Capo, to discuss a settlement was allegedly set up, and attended, by Leslie Bethel, son of Prime Minister Perry Christie’s investment ‘guru’, Sir Baltron Bethel, and then a RAV Bahamas executive.

While waiting for the Chief Justice’s verdict, RAV Bahamas’ attorney, Ferron Bethell at Harry B. Sands & Lobosky, wrote to Mr Edwards on June 24 alleging that he was in breach of several conditions of the lease agreement.

He and Sakara were given 30 days to remedy the breach but, 25 days after the letter was written, the beach club was allegedly demolished upon RAV Bahamas’ instructions.

The demolition, on July 18, came almost two months before the Chief Justice delivered his ruling, which found in favour of Mr Edwards/Sakara.

It is the demolition’s timing that has provoked the contempt of court action. Indeed, Mr Edwards’ attorney Mario Gray, on July 22, wrote to Mr Bethell arguing that Sir Michael had “made it very clear the status quo was to remain the same until completion of this matter.

“Your client, however, seems to believe that they are above the laws of our country and can do whatever it is they feel or wish without regard to the rules of the law and/or the negative effects their actions have directly on Bahamian families,” Mr Gray wrote.

“Your client’s actions have resulted in the immediate unemployment of some 15 workers and the total revenue generating ability of our client.”

Mr Gray, in his court filings on Mr Edwards’s behalf, alleged that the demolition was designed to prevent his client gaining the benefit of Sir Michael’s ruling.

And he further claimed that RAV Bahamas knew “it would be difficult if not impossible” for Sakara to be rebuilt within the time period set by the lease, this placing his client in default.

“On Saturday, July 20, within 48 hours of the demolition of Sakara, [RAV Bahamas] along with Resorts World Bimini, or at their insistence, opened a similar food and beverage facility to that of Sakara less than 1,000 feet away from where Sakara stood,” Mr Edwards alleged in his affidavit.

“It was said that was done so as to accommodate guests brought into North Bimini’s Bimini Bay Resort by the Resorts World Bimini’s SuperFast ferry.”

Mr Edwards then alleged he felt it was RAV Bahamas’, and Resorts World’s intention “to not have me there permanently.

“I was only the bait to get Resorts World in the door and thereafter as a real-time test of the potential of Sakara for the purposes of building a business model of the entity that they now operate in its place,” he claimed.

Mr Edwards alleged that Sakara would ultimately have reverted to Bimini Bay’s ownership, and said RAV Bahamas had made no effort to either rebuild it or contact him.

And he claimed that Resorts World Bimini’s operation of its own beach facility violated his lease agreement.

Apart from Mr Capo himself, other RAV Bahamas and Bimini Bay Resort Management executives subject to the action include his two son-in-laws, Rafael Reyes and Sean Grimsberg, and son Alejandro Capo.