Marigot:--- Several elected officials including the President of the Collectivity of St. Martin Alain Richardson were questioned by a special team of Gendarmes on Saturday for the controversial Authorisation d' Occupation Temporaire (AOT) they issued to Nobert Luftman.
It should be noted that Luftman's AOT had expired since 2009 since the commune of St. Martin did not renew the contract because there was an ongoing court case with the Beauperthuy family. Even though Luftman had no AOT, he collected rent from the owner of Bikini Beach Elisa Cohen and the owner of Kontiki Beach Philippe Juste. Based on unconfirmed reports, Norbert Luftman collected over Euros 500,000.00 from Elisa Cohen illegally because his AOT for Orient Beach expired and was not renewed but he was still collecting rent from the owners of at least three restaurants.
Two persons that were questioned a number of times by the team of Gendarmes are Norbert Luftman and Philippe Casaubon. SMN News learnt that several elected officials will be questioned this coming week because the investigators are not only looking at the illegality of the AOT that was issued retroactively but they are looking to see if the RRR government collected monies "under the table" for the AOT or if any type of election fraud was committed by the RRR political party.
Last week the Gendarmes arrested the Head of Domain Affairs Josi Carti and placed him in garde à view, shortly after they arrested the DGS of the Collectivity of St. Martin Pascal Avern and he too was placed in garde à vue after he was questioned on the issuance of the AOT to Norbert Luftman for a period of 13 years retroactive to 2009. Carti remains in garde a vue while Pascal Avern was released and he immediately travelled to Guadeloupe to be with his family for the Christmas holidays.
While it is unheard of that government would issue contracts retroactively, the COM under the leadership of President Alain Richardson did just that after their executive council took a unanimous decision on April 17th, 2012 to grant Luftman the AOT for a period of 15 years retroactive to June 2009. According to some paper-trail, Luftman received the AOT on September 4th, 2012 for 13 years retroactive to 2009.
SMN News was reliably informed that the former President of the COM Frantz Gumbs and Senator Louis Constant Fleming warned the leader of the RRR just before the 2nd round of the 2012 elections that if he won the elections he must not sign the AOT for Luftman because there are a lot of problems surrounding Orient Beach. The source said besides the court cases with the land owners, Norbert Luftman was allegedly providing false information to the commune to obtain the AOT. A source working within the administration of the COM said that Luftman declared he was the owner of the three restaurants and that he had managers running each of them.
Orient Beach, Luftman, Bikini Beach.
Upon further investigation, SMN News found information that showed that Elisa Cohen is the sole owner of Bikini Beach. Cohen opened her restaurant in 1992 in her own name "Elisa Cohen" and she was paying Luftman 10% of her gross sales as rent per month as her rent. In 1993, Luftman demanded 12.5% in rent from Cohen claiming that the commune had increased his fees for the AOT. Then in 2005 Luftman changed the contract to $10,000 per month which gives him a grand total of $120,000.00 per year. Elisa Cohen then changed her business into a SARL in 2004 making in "Le Bikini" and she remained the sole Director of her company.
While Elisa Cohen was paying that amount of monies to Luftman, the local government was receiving just over 2% per month for the AOT they granted to Luftman. According to information SMN News received, Elisa Cohen and Phillipe Juste both submitted a request to the Collectivity on February 15th, 2012 to obtain their own AOT for the space they are occupying on Orient Beach. Sources within the COM said that the executive council did not even look at the request of Cohen and Juste when they met in an executive council meeting on April 17th, 2012 and decided to grant the AOT to Luftman.
