BAHAMA HEAT WAVE
Nygard house fire may be arson: court papers
This billionaires’ legal brawl in the Bahamas is starting to read like a pulpy who dunit.
Canadian clothing tycoon Peter Nygard insinuated in court papers Wednesday that a fire that devastated his Bahamas beach estate in 2009 may have been started by the former groundskeeper of his nextdoor neighbor, the New York hedgefund billionaire Louis Bacon.
The groundskeeper, Dan Tuckfield, told a Nygard employee that Bacon had ordered him “to find away to burn Mr. Nygard’s **** ing house down,” court papers allege.
In a fierce plot twist that wasn’t accompanied by evidence, the filing noted Tuckfield is now deceased — and raised suspicions about the circumstances of his death in Bacon’s swimming pool six monthsafter the fire.
“Tuckfield’s watery death on Mr. Bacon’s property was particularly suspicious given that he was an expert swimmer who had previously survived a plane crash in the ocean, miles offshore,” Nygard’s lawyers wrote in a filing in Manhattan state court.
The over the top allegations read like pure fiction because that’s what they are, Bacon’s lawyers counter.
They’d already moved to pour cold water on them in earlier court filings, noting that a coroner’s report blamed Tuckfield’s death on heart disease and found no body trauma.
In addition, no police investigation was launched, sources said.
Indeed, Nygard’s theatrical insinuations until now had been limited to local papers and Web sites in the Bahamas, and were allegedly planted by Nygard, according to Bacon’s legal team.
Likewise, they blasted Nygard’s allegation that Bacon or Tuckfield had anything to do with the fire that destroyed more than half of Nygard’s lavish estate.
“At the time of the Nygard Cay fire, Mr. Bacon’s wife and children were asleep in their home directly adjacent to Nygard Cay,” Bacon’s lawyers noted. “Had winds shifted that night, they could have been seriously harmed.”
The incendiary salvo came as Nygard and Bacon for the past decade have been locked in a bitter propertyline dispute in the posh Bahamas neighborhood of Lyford Cay.
Nygard in the court filing painted himself as an underdog, the son of Finnish immigrants who “were forced to live in a converted coal bin with no electricity or running water” after they moved to Canada when Nygard was a child.
Having arrived in the Bahamas first, Nygard claimed heat first welcomed his new neighbor Bacon with open arms and had him over as a guest.
“For decades, Mr. Nygard, his neighbors, and native Bahamians lived in peaceful harmony, sharing in Bahamian culture and ideals and enjoying many celebrations together,” Nygard’s lawyers claimed.
But things soon turned sour as Bacon grew annoyed by Nygard’s parties. In retaliation, Bacon pointed militarygrade speakers at Nygard’s property to disrupt his shindigs, and soon made moves to acquire Nygard’s estate, court papers allege.
When Nygard refused to sell, a representative of Bacon threatened that Bacon would get the property “one way or another,” accordingto the suit.