It's not really
fair to judge people or companies by the way they look. But in
the case of San Cristobal it became increasingly difficult not
to be reminded constantly about some of Holywood's worst
gangster movies. Take Tom Lennon, who left a trail of business
failures in Atlanta, with a plethora of court cases brought by
people who say he owes them money. And of course there's the
main man, Tom McMurrain, a fugitive from justice, hanging out
in Bocas, surrounded by the local rascals he hired as his
bodyguards.
McMurrain set
up the "Bocas Business Association," but the response
from local entrepreneurs is minimal. "Bocas town is too
small for that" a Bocas source said. "The
entrepreneurs just meet in the street or in a bar. McMurrain is
trying to take over the place, he gave the police new mountain
bikes, starts this business association, walks around with his
goons as if he owns the place."
Our source
questioned McMurrain's plans to build a marina next to
investors' properties, when the area's two existing marinas
hardly have sufficient business. But the dream of the
"Principality of Magna," with its own port of call,
is still alive, so it seems.
And yet another
fugitive from justice emerges as a member of the noni empire.
Todd William Dearriba of Miami used to live the high life
there, a rich kid from a rich family with a special taste for
fast boats. However, he also managed to chalk up a string of
convictions for offenses ranging from drunk driving (even drunk
boating) to stalking, false imprisonment and burglary. Even his
parents at one time obtained a restraining order against him.
He went in and out of prison, and ultimately while out on
parole he just left the country and came to Panama, where he
joined San Cristobal. They don't ask too many questions
there.
However, in
this case San Cristobal took quick action after I noted
Dearriba's status to Barry Miller, one of the principals.
Dearriba was fired two days later.
I wouldn't be
writing this if I were a fugitive. Being a fugitive, or so I
always thought, would mean one needs to maintain a low profile,
blend in with the crowd, don't do anything that could attract
unwanted attention. Not with the fugitives on board of San
Cristobal, however. Ian Calvert Bleasdale was found because he
openly sold his Panamanian noni paradise investments and kept
exercising his habit of child sex abuse. Tom McMurrain puts
himself on the forefront of San Cristobal, even though he is a
wanted man in Atlanta, Georgia. And Todd Dearriba was not
exactly low profile either.
One day,
Dearriba was on the dock in Bocas, by the Buena Vista
restaurant, revving up Tom McMurrain's boat. Smoke and fumes
wafted over the tables out on the deck. A German tourist
having lunch there asked him to stop, which triggered Todd to
jump off the boat and hit him. McMurrain immediately got Todd
in the boat and sped away from the island. At San Cristobal,
Dearriba handled logistics, which, according to one source who
was briefly connected to the firm, "amounts to him
rounding up the hookers and the party supplies."
Make the money fly!
And partying is
one thing they know how to do at San Cristobal. Although the
investors may harbor images of San Cristobal's principals hard
at work busy clearing their land and planting their "cash
crop," they maybe intrigued to learn about a $30,000
budget for the Miami International Boat Show that turned into a
drunken circus. As McMurrain already described in his "we
own the fucking cookie jar" memo on how to raise more
mone, good meals, entertainment and boats are the top
priorities for San Cristobal's principals. Their booth at the
Boat Show wedged between a man selling battery operated pool
fish and another character touting miracle shoe polish, the
noni sellers failed to make one sale over the three days, also
because all the sales materials only arrived when the boat show
was almost finished.
"We all
knew it was a wash from the first moment and Tom [Lennon] just
used the opportunity to spend money," says Connie Lee,
one of the sales people who left San Cristobal after the
debacle. Instead of making sales, Lennon and his entourage
would visit various clubs where he would hand the guitar player
a hundred dollar bill to go on stage himself and play. Usually
arriving back to his presidential suite while the sun rose, he
would be seen in the company of a New Jersey stripper and a gay
hairdresser, while ordering bottles of Jack Daniels to the
room. "They all looked powdered up" says Connie
Lee. By the time the show was over, San Cristobal had made no
sales, but Lennon had left having earned the nickname "Hot
Pants."
Out of cash
after three days of hard work at the Boat Show, Hot Pants was
unable to pay Connie Lee her daily retainer fee. Sales people
not or late receiving payment is a complaint that can be heard
regularly from within San Cristobal.
Swiss-style setting, gangland-style
ambience
The mafia movie
cast would not be complete without a consigliore, the trusted
advisor, bound by attorney-client privilege and secrecy, the
one who provides legal cover for shady activities. As such, I
figured, served Barry Miller, a US lawyer. Stylish on the
outside, eloquent, driving a classy Mercedes, somewhat
overdressed in three-piece suits, but also capable of using
some pretty tough language. In one email to me, he refers to
having lunch as "when I am finished feeding my
face..." and then goes on about the horrors he's going to
do to me, which he to his colleagues describes as "we're
gonna clean the little asshole's cookoo clock."
It is with this
Barry Miller that I decide to make an appointment. It would be
a gamble, but Miller seemed to me the most sensible of the noni
bunch and at least he didn't have any outstanding arrest
warrants against him. McMurrain has provided me with an
excellent excuse: He offered me a free trip to Bocas for me and
my family. I declined, but wrote Miller privately that I would
support an independent expert going to Bocas to see what San
Cristobal was doing there and if that made any sense for
investors. Miller liked the idea, and we agreed to meet in the
Rincon Suizo, Chef Willy Diggelmann's renowned Swiss restaurant
in the heart of Panama City.
The days
preceeding the meeting go by as a tornado of phone calls,
emails, a visit to the US embassy and trying to quiet down the
ever ongoing war on the Internet between the noni tubbies and
me. "You should take security measures when you meet with
Miller!" insist some friends, but I don't see any real
danger. "Make sure you're not followed when you
leave," warns somebody else, and gives me a quick course
on how to "lose a tail."
I'm late, and
Barry Miller is already waiting for me, reading a John Grisham
novel. As it seems to be the protocol at meetings like this, we
only start to talk business when the food is served. I explain
about the forestry expert I have in mind, and Miller seems to
like what he hears. We agree to lay low for some time, try to
work out the expert visit, and stop the wars on the Internet
for the time being. At a certain point, Miller walks away from
the table and makes a phone call. The only thing I can hear him
say is that "the insurance policy will no longer be
needed." Apparently he had taken the safety precautions
that I had deemed unnecessary. It was late when we finally left
the Swiss chalet in tropical Panama.
Fear and loathing in Panama City
The resemblance
of the noni tubbies of characters from a mafia film would be
unimportant and sometimes even humorous, were it not that the
principals of San Cristobal did not miss a single opportunity
to establish the similarity in their actual behaviour as well.
Barry Miller left for a trip to Europe, and his colleagues
quickly chose to forget about the "lay low" agreement
we had and started a new round of threats and harassment.
"Yes I am having you investigated all the way back to your
home country. I am researching your immigration status in
Panama and I know why you cannot travel intracountry (to
Bocas). I have the license plates and names of just about
everyone that you have met with from Price Waterhouse to Abc
Wxyz. I know where you live, eat and who your girlfriends are.
I can find you with one phone call 24 hours a day. I know how
much you owe the front desk at the low end aparthotel you live
at. I know the attorney who is having to pay your overdue
bills," writes fugitive McMurrain when I just ask him for
an interview. In true mobster style, he continues: " I
will tell you that if you put anything else on the Internet
that is not authorized by me or San Cristobal that injures me
or my family I will come after you like a bolt of
lightning" and "I would suggest friend to friend that
you decide to change your career as it relates to San
Cristobal. This is not a threat it is a request," which
sounds all too much like "I'll make you an offer you can't
refuse." The only thing missing is that he would like some
more respect.
And Tom Lennon,
this time under his own name, writes to one of my sources that
I had committed several crimes in Panama, will have my passport
revoked soon, hacked into San Cristobal's computers and have
slandered and committed libel against San Cristobal. Lennon
then proceeds to offer the source "immunity" in some
criminal prosecution in Panama and the Netherlands and even
says my source will be well rewarded. If the source can just
forward Ornstein's emails to Lennon? But the only email that
gets forwarded is that of Lennon to me.
Meanwhile, Tom
Lennon, a/k/a "Hot Pants," returned to Panama where a
19-year-old woman nicknamed "Pocahontas" had been
waiting for him all that time. "I miss you so mosh,"
she wrote to Lennon, whom she calls "Jaques
Cousteau." This would all be utterly unimportant were it
not that information about Cousteau's amourette in Panama being
forwarded to me induced him to start a malicious campaign of
cyber stalking and death threats against me and a foreign
businessman as well as his girlfriend, whom Lennon held
responsible for telling me about his encounters with
Pocahontas. Using email addresses that appeared to be mine,
like okkeornstein@aol.com and okke_ornstein@hotmail.com, he
sent out messages to me as well as to this foreign businessman
telling him to better leave the country as it would no longer
be safe, quoting home addresses and passport numbers and
similar vicious stuff. The unfortunate businessman from up
north and his girlfriend even had the dubious pleasure of
"Fats," one of McMurrain's bodyguards, looking them
up in a restaurant and, in front of several witnesses, telling
them they should leave Panama or else. The "else" was
illustrated by pointing an imaginary gun to his head. Later,
Fats, who is described in a police report from the Bocas police
as a drug dealer with a history of violence, claimed to have
acted on orders of Tom Lennon, and repeats that claim in front
of the police. "Fats," whose real name is Aurelio
Pomares, is still on San Cristobal's payroll. Fugitive Todd
Dearriba, now fired by San Cristobal, called the girlfriend of
the businessman and told her she was going to be shot in the
head.
IT experts
looked at the properties of the email threats and found them to
originate from Lennon's account with AT&T in Atlanta.
Further, with the assitance of an AT&T techician, out of
Chelmsford, Massachussets, it was determined the emails were
sent from a Hotmail web interface using Tom Lennon's ISP
account with AT&T Broadband, as well as through AOL.
The foreign
businessman and his girlfriend meanwhile were so scared by the
threats and harassment that they decided to leave Panama to
their respective home countries.
"The thing
with the journalist is taken care off. Nothing to worry,"
writes sales director Peter Ernst to a broker.
Melchizedek and other promotors
While Lyle
Burke of Tropical Pathways and Saskia Delic of Happy Whale
earlier decided to no longer do business with San Cristobal,
other promotors, no doubt attracted by generous fees, continue
to market the Tropical Working Farms of fugitive Tom
McMurrain.
"The best
retirement investment I've seen in 20 years!" writes Roger
Gallo of Escapeartist.com. Gallo, described to me as the
"first self-appointed political refugee in the
world," changed a couple of details in the advertorial on
his site. Some of the more controversial statements all of a
sudden no longer can be attributed to him, but are now quotes
of Tom McMurrain. The advertorial is full of remarkable claims,
like that of a 20-year-old teak tree being worth $2,500 today --
- utter nonsense --- as well as the statement that teak, a
species of Southeast Asian origin, would be native to
Africa.
Another
promotor is Arthur Mitchell of Retired.com. The article on his
site, which looks at if it is written by Mitchell, is in
reality authored by Dennis Smith, COO of San Cristobal.
And, in light
of McMurrain's previous scheme in which he sold the promise of
the independent "Principality of Magna," it should
come as no surprise that San Cristobal is being advertised
prominently on the site of the "Melchizedek Spirit News
Wire Services." They have a similar name to the
"Dominion of Melchizedek," another odd colonial
"independent country scheme." We are told, however,
that the Dominion and the news service are only spiritually
linked. At one point the news service wrote to San Cristobal:
"The matter that I am concerned with is before us even NOW.
That being SCLD service quality. Service We, The Melchizedek
Spirit News Wire Services Import/Export - Media Division Firm
Co. Administration within the Office of the Christ, find to be
unsatisfactory in meeting the Standard of Service Quality we
seek from our Cosmic Chamber of Commerce Members." All this
and more to complain about the toll-free number of San Cristobal
not working.
The noni boiler room
Since the first
article came out in The Panama News, various clients contacted
the author stating that they wanted their money back.
"We've been had," writes one investor, and another
one states: "Not sure what I can do to get my deposit
back. Sounds like that will be difficult to do. But I intend to
try. If what you say is true I would like to see them
prosecuted for fraud. They shouldn't be allowed to get away
with it. I am also considering taking legal action against
them." Other investors are just devastated with the news:
"I still have not had the courage to read your full piece,
everytime I get half way I break down I cannot continue. We
have just been to naive and too gullable. It's 20 years of
savings that we put into this. I just hope there is a way we
can still recoup some of it. We don't have a lot of money left
and I would welcome if something can be done together with
other owners (...). I still can't talk about it without
crying... our dream shattered, life just does not seem to have
the same value anymore."
And on it goes.
All investors that contact me say they've been too naive, and
now wish they had done proper due dilligence before believing
the promises made to them by Tom McMurrain and his people.
"Only
$6,300 per acre Caribbean emerging growth real estate!"
writes San Cristobal.
"The price
for eight hectares of $126,000 is considered a very high price
to pay for land that is considered mangrove and swamp,
according to engineers working in the area," writes a law
firm that looked into the deal on behalf of a prospect.
However, San Cristobal recently even raised its prices.
"In twenty
years, based on normal price-adjusted costing, the hardwood
could be worth over $2,500,000!" writes Roger Gallo in his
advertorial for San Cristobal.
"It is to
our knowledge that teak can not grow in a healthy manner in
areas like Bocas del Toro," writes the law firm, a
statement that is confirmed by forestry experts.
"We're
currently doing independent soil tests," writes San
Cristobal to an inquiring cient.
"In the
area of Almirante, Punta Pargo, [on] the land offered to the
investors only a very poor quality of oak can be
harvested," says the law firm.
"The
exotic fruits can produce upwards of $40k a year in
revenue...," says San Cristobal. "The next trillion
dollar industry... ANTI-AGING," writes Tom McMurrain.
"[T]he
reality is very far from the promised profits," writes the
law firm.
To sell these
swamps where only a poor quality oak will grow, San Cristobal
has adopted an interesting combination of time share sales
tactics and boilerroom techniques. Says Connie Lee, former
sales executive: "Imagine McMurrain's boat filled with
investors. They are all peering over opposite sides of the boat
yelling 'that one's mine!' And Tom turning the boat around and
around and everybody drinking Mai Tais. The sales people man
both sides of the boat and work the deck in hush tones so
everybody gets to think the side of the boat they're on is
where their property is. Fade to conga beat and the disco in
Bocas. Tom at the head of the locomotive conga, as they, hands
on each other's hips, snake around the dance floor."
In the office,
meanwhile, the sales staff is working the phones, each with a
completely different story. One investor at one point even
writes: "You guys all gotta have the same story! How many
lots are really sold? Barry Miller says 32.....you [Tom
McMurrain] say 40 to 60....and Ian Calvert says 62 sold with
only 40 units left.....so.....????"
To which San
Cristobal then responds that 32 is the "legal sale
number" of "titled, surveyed, cleared and planted
plantations." Which is also a lie, as no investor appears
to have received a title yet, and the clearing and planting
appears to have only started recently.
After clients
have shown their interest or even made a deposit, it's time to
put the pressure on in true boilerroom fashion. "I need
you to wire the full amount before the 15th. I have three
people in line behind you for the piece," writes Tom
McMurrain. "What is happening is that we are getting sold
out, and to protect your interest we need you to just send the
balance which we will hold for you," is another line used
to persuade those who made a deposit to wire the full amount,
even though the conditions have not been met. "Yes, your
property is close to the marina," is something many
clients get confirmed, leaving one wondering about the giant
size this marina must have, as well as a lot of contradictory
statements about noni as a miracle cash crop. "We have
only had 4 harvests," writes McMurrain, but in the same
email he claims to sell 6,000 pounds every week for 50¢ a
pound and expects prices to be higher when they produce more.
"After planting the noni needs one year till it produces
the first fruit," writes sales director Peter Ernst, not
realizing that San Cristobal doesn't even exist one year yet,
which of course raises the question where these noni sales
originate from.
"Everything is perfectly orchestrated around one
thing and one thing only," says Connie Lee. She means
signing the contract. This is a special ceremony at San
Cristobal, that, if clients are in Panama, takes place in the
unbearably hot solarium attached to the office.
"Dennis
coordinates the return of the investors. One set goes to Casco
Viejo, the other on a tour of the canal, this has to be done in
synchrony so they can all arrive at different times and be set
in the sunroom to sign the contracts. Barry is running back and
forth with the minimal contract changes as a beautiful office
gal sits on the edge of the sofa, tanned legs touching up
against the investor, doing her damndest to distract him, just
as Barry has told her to do." Eventually, the investor is
sweating heavily and very much distracted, and just signs to
get out of the boiler. By then, they have signed a contract
that "basically only gives them the right to pick
fruit," as a lawyer decribes it after having reviewed that
document.
But for
McMurrain, sales are not going quickly enough, and, as Connie
Lee describes it: "Tom started his probably steroid driven
rage about not accepting any more deposits. CASH ONLY! Sight
unseen! Tell them not to even think about coming down for at
least three months so we can clear their property and plant it.
If they don't like the lot when they get here, we can switch
them out! A mad man. I felt like I was working for Jim
Jones."
The Atlanta Connection
The most
important asset for making sales of San Cristobal is no doubt
its founder Tom McMurrain. He sells a dream. A part of tropical
paradise, with warm weather year round, the pristine waters of
the Bocas archipelago, trees that will bring incredible
returns, and the holistic noni fruit that is an important part
of the upcoming trillion-dollar anti-aging industry. It's
almost like the film "Cocoon," in which elderly
people have the opportunity to live forever in paradise, but in
this case old and young fall for the bubble with which
McMurrain bewitches them. "First he turns them into
believers, and then the money comes easily," says a source
in Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta is the
place where McMurrain developed his skills to lure investors
into grandiose sounding dreams, which eventually led to two
criminal complaints filed by investors in his schemes. The
vehicle he used was a company called "Emergency One,"
and McMurrain raised money by handing out promisory notes
offering interest rates of up to 30 percent per annum. Another
company he ran was "Global E Tutor" (GETT), listed on
Nasdaq, which purported to provide Internet educational
products for children. The Lancer Fund of Michael Lauer, now in
serious financial and legal trouble and reported to be
investing only in dubious penny stock, held 10 percent of the
shares of GETT. Other sources allege that the Lancer Offshore
Fund of the Britsh Virgin Islands was used to funnel investors'
money offshore. Tom Lennon's wife, Emmy award winning TV
producer Karen Lennon, sat on the board of advisors of GETT.
"Emergency
One was a real company that initially did real business, but
McMurrain overspent on marketing and then there was a lack of
funds to meet obligations to investors," says a source who
worked for E-One.
At a certain
point, McMurrain could or would no longer pay interest on the
promisory notes he had issued. He wrote a letter to investors,
claiming he had built a "winning company," and
stating that he had raised a family and "beat cancer"
over the last six months. He warned those investors not to go
to the SEC as they might lose all, and painted yet another
imaginary scenario to attract an "angel investor,"
who would just have to cough up something to the tune of $6
million to save the "winning company." In the
proposal for this angel investor, it was represented that
Emergency One owned substantial stock and partnerships in
various companies of Tom Lennon and his wife, like BeyondZ and
Esubcontractor. Tom Lennon, asked about this, replies that
"as far as E-one is concerned, I had absolutely no
involvement with that company and am not privy to Tom
McMurrain's relationship with his investors other than the fact
that I know money was lost." It would indeed be strange if
Lennon was not aware of money being lost, as in another email
he says that he himself lost money in McMurrain's schemes.
Email
correspondence to and from San Cristobal suggests that Tom
Lennon was more aware of the true nature of McMurrain's deals
than he claims. An email to San Cristobal about a possible
business relation: "Don's biggest reservation is McMurrain
and all the dirt he carries in Atlanta. (...) is very concerned
about an association with him." Another indication would
be that Jerry Barton, the retired former president of NAPA Auto
Parts hardware division became the CEO of GETT while Tom
McMurrain remained on the board. Barton, whom Lennon describes
as a "very well respected Atlanta businessman,"
continues to do business with Lennon and McMurrain even though
the latter is wanted for theft of investors' funds, and travels
regularly to Panama referring clients to San Cristobal,
correspondence shows. Even so, Lennon denies that Barton has
ever referred one single prospect to San Cristobal.
"Is Tom
Lennon a victim or an accomplice of Tom McMurrain?" I
asked to several people.
"Over the
years, it might have gone back and forth between victim and
accomplice. He is much like the wife of an alcoholic,"
says a source who knows them both.
"But the Lord laid it on my heart
to walk a straighter line."
"It so
happens, that I believe in Tom McMurrain. He may have gotten in
over his head a little, but his vision and soul are pure, and
that's what I bought into," says Deborah Keipper, an
investor in San Cristobal, in an email to the author.
"We want
McMurrain back, we don't care so much about the money,"
says a group of investors in Atlanta.
"The
asshole or more assholes will haul our butts into court and
require rectal exams and all of our personal records and even
when it is all said and done we still have to live with the
fact that one asshole may lose it and stalk our asses
down," writes Tom McMurrain in a memo about the San
Cristobal Fund.
"He is
ruthless. An evil predator of the worst kind," says
another one of McMurrain's erstwhile investors.
"It's a
shame you would denounce someone who is working hard to build a
better community," says Deborah Keipper.
And that's
exactly what McMurrain wants it to look like. Building a better
community in Bocas with the Bocas Business Association, and
back in Atlanta he engaged in a project to offer free taxi
rides home for people who had been drinking during a night out.
"The Lord laid it on my heart to walk a straighter
line," he declared in an interview. In reality, the
predator was looking for new lambs, and had found them in
Atlanta's Church of the Apostle.
One of
McMurrain's victims was the assistant pastor at this church.
The man is in his 70's and lead an exemplary life. McMurrain at
that time claimed to suffer from cancer, befriended the
assistant pastor, and became deeply involved with the First
Baptist Church, where even services for his recovery were held.
McMurrain appeared to walk a straighter line --- straight out
of the life of the assistant pastor, having taken his life
savings of $200,000, leaving the old man heart broken and
penniless. "He broke down, cried for days, it destroyed
him," says a source close to the case, "and he
retired from his work at the church."
McMurrain,
meanwhile, ran off to Costa Rica and later to Panama to start
San Cristobal and continue to live the high life.
June 2002 was
the magic month for San Cristobal. It's when McMurrain hoisted
the skull & crossbones, Lennon shouted "I'm with yer
matey," and on board jumped the illustrious Ian Calvert.
The ship named San Cristobal left shore with much fanfare, the
sales started rolling. A modern-day version of Morgan the
pirate was ready to pillage Panama. But as McMurrain wrote,
there's always the one asshole who may "stalk our asses
down." And if it's not the asshole, it may very well be
the authorities. Although Panama hesitates to prosecute when
foreigners are swindled in schemes hatched in this country,
using electronic media to reach across international borders
and lure victims from the United States can violate all sorts
of US laws, and a source within the FBI confirmed just days ago
that the bureau is taking an active interest in McMurrain and
his noni empire.
Also in this
section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Bocas noni scheme, part
2 of 2
The Panama News
readership statistics
