American urges people with land grab evidence to join forces for class action lawsuit – The Royal Gazette

By Evan Vega On Dec 30, 2021

Created: 12/30/2021 9:01 AM

Call to Action: Helen Muise plans to team up with Bermudians to launch a lawsuit (photo included)

An American, who claims that an island off Southampton may have been stripped of her family a century ago, calls on others with evidence of “land grab” to unite in a class action lawsuit.

Helen Muise said affected families should consider taking legal action against local law firms involved in transfers where there are question marks about title deeds and real property.

“I want to bring Bermuda residents together to file a class action lawsuit because nobody is really doing anything,” she said.

“You’re listening now, which is great, but now is the time to act.”

Wyoming’s Ms. Muise only began researching the history of her family’s Bermuda estates this summer, so she missed the opportunity to be investigated by the Commission of Inquiry into Historic Land Losses, the report of which the Prime Minister presented to Parliament on December 10th .

She said she hoped the commission would investigate more cases again, although there is no indication that this will happen.

And she wondered why the panel could not find Bermuda Wills that they believed were easy to find on familysearch.org, a free family history website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I find it very strange,” she said.

The call for a class action lawsuit is supported by two Bermudians who tried to testify before the commission and claim they are forbidden to do so.

Raymond Davis, also known as Khalid Wasi, and Myron Piper last year called for a judicial review of the commission, claiming it was a shame and the commissioners had a conflict of interest.

The Royal Gazette revealed that the judicial review was never carried out as a judge could not be found who was not in conflict.

Mr Davis is now calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to be set up with commissioners from abroad.

Mr Davis said he and others would support a class action lawsuit.

Ms. Muise told The Royal Gazette that she had long known about a story by her late uncle Ben Nunn of how the family lost Perot Island and other Bermudian possessions.

In August she finally found time to look through old files her uncle had left with the family.

“The property was bequeathed to my great-great-grandfather Ormond Leigh Dickinson from his uncle Joseph Catlin Dickinson for liquidation,” said Ms. Muise.

Ancestors of Helen Muise

“In 1917 there was an advertisement for Perot Island. I think they tried to sell the island, but as there was no certificate they couldn’t. “

Ms. Muise said her research led her to believe that the original document was lost in a shipwreck.

The trail goes cold after 1917 and the next record it could find was from 1928 when Claudia Darrell, the Southampton parish clerk, claimed to have deed the land and tried to sell it.

Transportation records from 1937 show the land is divided between three owners – Claudia Darrell, MP Henry Thompson North – who is mentioned in the COI report on another matter – and Thornton Wallace Orr, who built a mansion there.

Ms. Muise claimed Ms. Darrell, who died in 1949, forged a title deed.

She said attempts had been made to change the name of Perot Island – her great-great-great-uncle bought it from the Perot family – to Crumb Brush Island or Tibby’s Island.

She said it has changed hands several times since then.

Ms. Muise said her late uncle Ben Nunn, who was born in Bermuda in the 1950s, inquired about the property’s sale in the 1980s but was briefly failed by the Bank of Bermuda.

Now she’s not sure how to confirm her belief that the island was repurposed by her ancestors.

“I contacted a lot of lawyers there [in Bermuda],” She said.

“None of them will reply to my emails. I contacted whereismyland.org, I contacted the FBI. “

Anyone who thinks they have lost land and wants to contact Ms. Muise can email her at [email protected]

The commission was set up in October 2019 to “investigate historical losses of Bermuda citizen property”.

It was hit by a number of controversies after its first public hearings began in September 2020.

In October 2020, Ivan Whitehall, Senior Counsel to the Commission, resigned on “personal grounds” and was replaced by Dirk Harrison.

A month later, two COI investigators wrote to the commissioners expressing concerns about the “integrity of the Commission’s procedures”, including witness protection and alleged conflicts of interest between commissioners. When the two investigators’ contracts expired shortly afterwards, they were not renewed.

In November 2020, police opened an investigation after an investigator alleged that documents and personal papers had been removed from her desk.

In January 2021, the commission was branded as bogus by two witnesses who claimed they were not allowed to testify at the hearing.

The couple filed an affidavit calling for an injunction and judicial review, claiming the commissioners had conflicted because they had close links with the institutions under investigation.

But their reasons for wanting a judicial review were never heard – because all the commercial judges on the island had come into conflict.

In their final report, presented to the House of Assembly earlier this month, the commissioners wrote: “The COI recognizes that it has received some applications that were rejected because they did not fit within the COI’s mandate.

“Regrettably, some petitioners and some individuals engaged by the COI have publicly criticized the investigation for rejecting their claims, questioning the integrity of the process and the partiality of certain commissioners.

“As a legislator and quasi-judicial organ, the COI exercised the necessary judicial restraint and did not participate in public debates when it was criticized.”