By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

HEDGE FUND billionaire Louis Bacon claims he cannot return to the Bahamas, his home for many years, because he is in “fear for his life and the safety of his family”.

In court documents filed in New York yesterday, Mr Bacon said because of the “malicious campaign of harassment and intimidation” against him by Canadian fashion billionaire Peter Nygard, his family cannot return to the Bahamas for “fear of bodily harm”.

“The harassment campaign has intimidated Mr Bacon and his family such that they can no longer return to the Bahamas for fear of bodily harm,” the court documents said. “Mr Bacon married his wife in the Bahamas, schooled his children in the Bahamas; and, for many weeks and months each year, he and his family called the Bahamas their home. As a result of the harassment campaign, the Bahamas is no longer safe for Mr Bacon and his family.

“While Mr Bacon and/or his family resided in the Bahamas for a total of approximately 210 days in 2008 and 270 days in 2009, by 2013 and 2014, they resided in the Bahamas for only approximately 14 days and 7 days respectively. As a result of the harassment campaign Mr Bacon has not returned to the Bahamas since approximately April 2014.”

In the complaint, Mr Bacon alleges that the “harassment campaign” has caused him to “suffer severe emotional distress and mental pain and anguish, including, but not limited to, anxiety, stress, humiliation, embarrassment and ostracism, loss of sleep and exacerbation of other physical harms, deprivation of social and business relationships, and damage to his professional, social and philanthropic reputations.”

In January Mr Bacon sued Mr Nygard for $50m, alleging that the Canadian fashion mogul has waged an “obsessive and malicious” smear campaign against him in this country since 2010.

Mr Bacon and Mr Nygard own adjacent properties in Lyford Cay and have been feuding for years.

The lawsuit accused Mr Nygard of being a “ringleader of a conspiracy to inflict reputational and other harm on Mr Bacon through a variety of unlawful means”.

Mr Bacon claimed that Mr Nygard has “transmitted, conspired to transmit or aided and abetted the transmission of a variety of false information,” including that he murdered people who died under suspicious circumstances, that he is a white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan, that he smuggled narcotics and fugitives, that he committed arson on Mr Nygard’s residence and that he bribed Bahamian officials.

In the 86-page document, Mr Bacon is also seeking damages of $15m from several Bahamians, including a former journalist, who he alleges perjured himself for Mr Nygard. Mr Bacon also requested that the former journalist be jailed as “a result of his false testimony”.