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Paumen and Modiri, The Legal Tangle Thickens
posted (December 6, 2018)

Neighbors and enemies Bradley Paumen and Michael Modiri were back in the Supreme court today.  Modiri is trying to collect on a $300,000 dollar judgement that the court awarded him against Paumen.  You may recall that these neighbors are landlocked, and Paumen was running his million-dollar cruise tourism operation, Dark Night through Modiri's land.

In 2014, Modiri sued and Justice Shona Griffith awarded him $300,000 which she ordered Paumen and his tour company to pay. That was in 2016, and Paumen hasn't paid anything. 

So, earlier this year, Modiri initiated enforcement proceedings against him in the Supreme Court. But, still, no payment - as the legal wrangling over corporate configurations continued in the Supreme Court today.  

Today's session ended with both sides claiming modest victories when they left the courtroom:

Oscar Sabido - Attorney for Michael Modiri
"We said those shares belong to Mr. Paumen although they are in another person's name, one Pedro Ack and the court actually agreed with us and gave the summary judgement today and said yes. In a sense it was like almost like we came to that point both sides because it was clear, it was an obvious admission by the attorney on the other side who said in his pleadings, well the shares actually belong to Mr. Paumen, they are being held by Mr. Ack for Mr. Paumen and the court said, well if that is the case it's almost like an inevitable point that they belong to him and so I in a sense am constrained, I would have to probably make the order and we came to that decision and so the court made the order. So it puts him in a position where now the claimant, Mr. Modiri, that he may be able to collect his money because he has made one step forward in establishing the ownership of the shares, so that kind of like put things right for Mr. Modiri that he has been trying to fight for a long time."

Steve Perrera - Attorney for Paumen
"Mr. Paumen has never denied that Mr. Ack holds those shares in those two companies on behalf of himself and his wife, that what we have indicated. What transpired today now was that the court looked at our defense where we admitted and agreed and we too agreed that since Mr. Paumen is not denying that he owns the shares, that the court can make an order in respect to the fact that he owns the shares and so we proceeded on that basis. Our position was that we didn't have to be taken around the entire ring road to reach back to this point because that was our defense in the first place. As a result, the court ordered that Mr. Modiri, the claimant, pay to us cost in this matter."

The case goes back before Justice Griffith later this month.  Of course, this civil suit is not the only dispute between Paumen and Modiri. Paumen is awaiting trial for abetment to murder.  Police have accused him of being the mastermind of a plot to kill Modiri and several of his associates.

One of his alleged accomplices, Jahan Abadi, has been was convicted of abetment to murder by solicitation. He was sentenced to 6 years in prison.  He, Paumen and others were charged for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. They allegedly worked together to plant an unlicensed firearm and loads of ammunition on Michael Modiri. And evidence from his recent trial says that he actually tried to hire a hitman - who is a policeman - to kill Modiri.

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