The following statement of facts has been prepared and released by: Bob Barnhart, OSO Bobthebuilder; John Barkley, OSO NaplesBaja and Hans Haedelt, OSO Rockstrmkr:
OSO captnate, Nathan ( Nate) Hunt, was today arrested for stealing over $7,400.00 from “The Jennifur Molter Trust.” Myself and a few of my closest friends at Ft Myers Offshore ( FMO) have known of this situation since early December, 2007 but have not been able to speak about it publicly because of the ongoing police investigation that we had requested. Let me start from the beginning. We can only state the facts as we know them and will lay it out for you as best we can.
Many of you here are aware of the tragic offshore boating accident off Marco Island, FL in January of 2007. Four people lost their lives that day but 16 year old Jennifur Molter survived it. She lost her mother, brother, sister and her sisters fiancée’. Our FMO group decided to hold a fund raiser to help Jennifur achieve her goal of getting a college education. Many here on OSO as well as the public opened their hearts and their wallets and approximately $26,000.00 was raised. Nate Hunt, then being part of our FMO group was very involved with the fund raising, having secured the Bayfront complex for our use and also secured several items for auction. It appeared that his heart at that time, was in the right place. He also knew the Molter family and we had asked him to be the liaison between our FMO group and the family. With the amount of money involved, we felt it appropriate that it go into a Trust so that it would both be safe and used as intended – for Jennifur’s future education. Hans Haedelt ( OSO rockstrmkr ) used his local connections to have a lawyer draw up the Trust. Neither Hans nor myself are US citizens and were therefore unable to serve as trustees. Nate and John Barkley had offered to serve as the two trustees. The Trust was also set up so that any withdrawals required 2 signatures. We felt we had taken all of the appropriate steps to protect the money that was raised.
Jennifur started her first semester at Edison College in Naples in September, 2007. She achieved a 4.0 average on her subjects in that semester and continues to do well. On Monday December 3, 2007 we received a call from Jennifur informing us that Nate was not being responsive to her requests for second semester tuition and money to cover her books. After discussion amongst the three of us Hans H; John B; and myself ) a decision was made to verify that all of the money was still safely in the account. It was not and once we had completed our own internal investigation the matter was turned over to the Naples City Police. It was also discovered that Nate had forged John Barkley’s signature on one of the checks. John, is a Sergeant with the Naples City Police. The three of us met with Nate on Thursday evening December 5, 2007 for the purpose of giving Nate an opportunity to explain things ( which he could not) and also to ask for his resignation as a trustee which we secured. John Wilkinson ( OSO Specialized ) is now the second trustee for the Trust.
We feel that we have a strong case to ask the Bank involved to replace the funds that they made available to Nate where checks only had one signature and not the two required by the Trust documents. There are sufficient funds in the account that Jennifer can continue her education for some time to come, while all of this gets sorted out.
The investigation is now complete, charges have been filed, an arrest has been made and now we will wait for this matter to go to trial in due coarse. Hopefully justice will be served.
Bob, John, Hans.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/...vors-trust-fu/
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