JAMAICA-Attorney denies forging a document to alter the Will of the late Sandals hotel boss.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The attorney, who represented the late hotel mogul, Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, has rejected “entirely” a claim that he forged a document to add the US-based family of the hotelier as beneficiaries of a trust intended to benefit only two of his children.

“I reject this claim entirely. At all times, I have acted consistently with Mr. Stewart’s wishes,” said Trevor Patterson, who said he had been Stewart’s attorney for nearly 20 years.

In an affidavit filed on November 20 this year, Stewart’s son, Adam, who is the chief executive officer of Sandals and the ATL Groups, said Patterson, a senior attorney at the law firm Patterson Mair Hamilton, was his father’s attorney and was also among four executors of his estate.

In the affidavit, which is in support of an application by Adam and his siblings, Jaime Stewart-McConnell and Brian Jardim, over the dispute regarding what they term the lack of progress in administering the estate of the late hotel mogul, they argued that no progress had been made in administering his estate according to his wishes since their father’s death in January 2021.

They are asking the Supreme Court to remove the four executors of his estate, namely Stewart’s common-law wife, Cheryl Hammersmith-Stewart, two of his lifelong friends, Hugh Martin and Elizabeth Desnoes, and Patterson.

They told the Court that they’ve lost trust in Hammersmith-Stewart and Patterson’s ability to administer their father’s estate fairly and are seeking to conduct the administration as quickly as possible.

They cited the findings of two international experts, who, Adam said, showed overwhelming evidence that Patterson forged a document to alter his father’s wishes.

Adam alleges that subject to evidence to the contrary, Patterson’s support of the interests of Stewart’s US-based family and one of their siblings, Bobby Stewart, had driven the attorney to falsify and backdate to 2019 a draft deed including them as beneficiaries of a Trust that was intended to benefit only him and his sister, Jaime.

The Sandals and ATL CEO said further that an e-disclosure specialist reviewed the draft deed Patterson submitted. According to the affidavit, “the metadata report shows that Trevor Patterson created and modified the draft deed (sent by Mr. Patterson to the Trustee on October 5, 2021) for 31 minutes on January 10, 2021.

“That is six days after my father’s death, and not in 2019 as stated in Mr. Patterson’s letter or at any point before my father’s death,” according to the affidavit, adding that Adam’s attorneys instructed a digital forensics specialist who has 20 years of experience, a doctorate in computer science, and operates a company based in the United Kingdom, to do a further review of the draft deed and the same findings were arrived at.

Adam told the Court that the conclusion in the digital specialist’s report stated that Patterson amended the draft deed six days after ‘Butch’ Stewart died to add six beneficiaries, including Cheryl Hammersmith Stewart and Bobby Stewart.

Adam further told the Court that another UK-based digital forensics expert engaged on October 31 this year also confirmed the damning findings.

“It is of deep concern to me that Mr. Patterson has knowingly and dishonestly fabricated a document to the detriment of Jaime and me, who are the sole beneficiaries of the Trust,” Adam said, telling the Court that he’s concerned that Patterson egregiously misrepresented his father’s wishes and the attorney cannot be trusted to discharge his duties as executor fairly, at least without careful direction from the Court.

But in his response, Patterson said he had been made aware of the allegations made against him in an article circulating on an Instagram account and that while the article quoted “generously from a lawsuit which, though filed, is yet to be served on me,” he was “given no opportunity by the writer of the article to comment or respond.

“Ordinarily, I would not discuss the affairs of a client in the public domain, but on this occasion, I am compelled to do so in defense of my professional integrity in light of these serious and false accusations regarding my conduct,” Patterson said.

He confirmed that he had been Butch Stewart’s attorney for nearly 20 years and had worked on his final Estate Plan, on and off, for three years.

“During that time, I repeatedly asked him to meet with his family and outline his plan. He consistently refused, and I realized it was because he felt it would cause disaffection among certain family members.”

Patterson said that in the course of drawing up his Will, Butch Stewart had warned him that his son, “Adam, will come after you” and asked me to add my name to a list of financial beneficiaries to whom he was bequeathing cash legacies.

“In my case, US$10 million. I refused, explaining that if my name were on the list, I would not be able to defend his Will and wishes. He also asked me to become the Non-Executive Chairman of the Sandals and Beaches Group for three (3) years after his death. I declined.”

Paterson said that from the very day when he read Butch Stewart’s Will and wishes to the family, “some family beneficiaries, namely Adam, Jaime, and Brian, were visibly upset.

“I am one of the co-executors of the Estate, and Adam has launched a persistent campaign against me to discredit me and overturn Mr. Stewart’s wishes.”

Patterson said that the situation started with an affidavit filed by Adam in The Bahamas in April 2022 “in which he stated that I changed his wishes after Mr. Stewart’s death.

“That is entirely false. This most recent allegation relates to a trust established in Guernsey in 2005, which named Adam and Jaime Stewart as the original beneficiaries. Mr. Stewart wanted the assets in the Guernsey trust to be lumped together with assets in two (2) Bahamian trusts, one holding the Sandals& Beaches hotel chain, to be treated as one and distributed to his family in specified percentages.

“This was confirmed in inter alia (i) a 2018 Will; (ii) his last Will signed in 2020; (iii) a final Letter of Wishes signed January 3, 2020 (which simply reiterated what was previously said); and (iv) various Memoranda of instructions sent to two (2) US law firms and a Bahamian law firm which assisted in providing US tax advice and document review about the plan.”

Patterson said that the documents to implement the plan were drafted before Butch Stewart’s death. In 2019, he received them from a resident of The Bahamas, a director of Stewart’s private Bahamian trust company, a draft unsigned amendment to the Guernsey trust.

“I assumed that the document was drafted by the Bahamian lawyers who usually act in trust matters for Mr. Stewart. It concerned the addition of Mr. Stewart as a beneficiary to the Guernsey Trust.

“Mr Stewart rejected the document and said he had an alternative plan, which turned out to be a sale of all of Sandals & Beaches assets and the assets in the Guernsey trust and division of the sale proceeds among the family beneficiaries in the stated percentages.”

In the lengthy statement, Patterson said that Stewart died on January 4, 2021, and he had begun reviewing all the trust documents.

“In relation to the Guernsey trust, I reviewed the 2019 draft amendment and, in anticipation of the fact that the other family beneficiaries would need to be added to that trust by Mr. Stewart’s wish, I, or it could have been my assistant on my instructions, added the names of the other family beneficiaries.”

He said in June that year, along with the Bahamian director, a conference call took place with the Guernsey trustee in which he explained that it was Butch Stewart’s wish that other family beneficiaries be added to that trust.

“The call concluded with the Guernsey trustee agreeing to follow whatever the main trust in The Bahamas did. Not long after, the main trustee in The Bahamas added a Family Beneficiary by Mr. Stewart’s wishes, and I assumed that the Guernsey trustee would follow that lead.”

The statement outlined several other actions taken over the period in keeping with the new situation and that “to my amazement, the next development was a claim of fraud said to have been “discovered” by forensic examination of the document.

“I reject this claim entirely. At all times, I have acted consistently by Mr. Stewart’s wishes. I have not distorted or departed from those wishes and have nothing to gain by doing so. The forensic examination revealed nothing that was unknown before and was only designed to discredit me,” Patterson said.

He said that for nearly four years, “I have steadfastly sought to implement the Will and wishes of Mr. Stewart and, for that reason, I have become the villain that must be destroyed.

“This latest incident is one of many which I have had to endure, and Mr. Stewart had given me fair warning,” he added.