By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A ten-acre undeveloped private island in the Exumas is being advertised for sale in a bid to recover millions of dollars for the alleged victims of a former MP and Supreme Court judge.

Darron Cash, the former Free National Movement (FNM) chairman and Senator, who is the Supreme Court-appointed receiver for assets identified as owned by Elliott Lockhart KC, confirmed yesterday to Tribune Business that Goat Cay is among the latter’s properties now in his control and possession.

The ten-acre island, located off Williams Town at the south-eastern end of Exuma, is set to be sold-off by Mr Cash in a snap auction with all bids due to be submitted by a tight 1pm deadline this upcoming Monday, July 21. Potential buyers will have just two hours in which to submit offers that day, with the bidding due to start at 11am, although they can also present offers during Friday’s inspection of Goat Cay.

Mr Cash confirmed to this newspaper that he is making “slow but positive progress” in locating, securing and then attempting to sell real estate and other assets identified as belonging to Mr Lockhart. Once closing and others due costs are paid, the proceeds will be used to compensate the ex-MPs former clients who paid him multi-million dollar sums to complete real estate transactions that were never closed.

The funds were never returned to these clients, foreign investors in The Bahamas, despite Mr Lockhart failing to perform or deliver the services for which he was hired. “The best way to describe it is that it is slow but positive progress as we try to preserve the assets and protect the rights of all the parties concerned,” Mr Cash said of the receivership’s sales process.

He also disclosed that he is awaiting a decision by the Bahamas Bar Association, although this would likely have to come from the Council, as it relates to the fate of Mr Lockhart’s client files. “It is appropriate to say that the determination of the Bahamas Bar Association will be important in the receiver’s treatment of the files which represent a component of KC Lockhart’s practice,” Mr Cash said.

“That determination by the Bahamas Bar Association remains outstanding.” Mr Cash declined to comment further, but the notice advertising Goat Cay for sale noted discrepancies between the seven-acre size detailed on the island’s last conveyance and the ten acres calculated by Google Earth.

All interested parties have been invited to inspect the property on Friday, July 18, where a boat will be made available to transport those who have registered to the island from Williams Town. For any sale to be finalised, the bid must have been approved by the Supreme Court.

“It isn’t much of an island, nothing to brag about. To be truthful, there’s not much to think about. It’s nothing special. I don’t know what it’s going to sell for,” one real estate source familiar with Goat Cay said yesterday. The island is vacant and undeveloped.

Still, Goat Cay represents the second of Mr Lockhart’s properties to be advertised for sale by Mr Cash. In late April 2025, he sought offers on the former offices of Lockhart & Company, Mr Lockhart’s former law firm, located at 35 Buen Retiro Road off Shirley Street. Other assets that could be targeted include his personal residence, with a last known address listed as 67 Ocean Drive, Adelaide Village.

Other real estate and chattels of value in both New Providence and Exuma, the latter being the constituency Mr Lockhart represented in Parliament between 1997 and 2002, will also likely be of interest to Mr Cash. The Supreme Court previously approved a ‘fieri facias’ application brought on behalf of US investor, Dr Paul Fuchs, which authorises officials to seize assets from persons who fail to pay court judgments.

Dr Fuchs is asserting that Mr Lockhart owes him $3.033m over a real estate deal that fell through. Following an October 11, 2023, hearing, the Supreme Court ordered that Mr Lockhart and Lockhart & Co were “jointly and severally liable” to return the $3.033m to Dr Fuchs.

Interest was to be added at an annual rate of three percent from September 8, 2023, and this subsequently rose to 6.25 percent per annum until full payment. Mr Lockhart’s whereabouts are currently unknown, with some sources saying he is still in The Bahamas and others suggesting he may have fled abroad.

Back in June 2024, Mr Lockhart was the subject of an Interpol ‘red notice’, which is a worldwide alert issued to all law enforcement authorities, asking them to help locate, and provisionally arrest, the former MP and ex-Supreme Court judge who was once chairman of Nassau Flight Services, the Gaming Board and the Police Inspectorate.

Prior to the Interpol action, the Royal Bahamas Police Force in early 2024 had issued a ‘wanted poster’ for Mr Lockhart after Dr Fuchs lodged a criminal complaint against him. The Interpol action also revealed that other aggrieved investors were making similar allegations to those asserted by Dr Fuchs.

Daniel Clay Smith Jnr was revealed to have made a separate but similar complaint to the police force’s Financial Crimes Investigation Branch on August 18, 2023. He alleged that, between May 2022 and November 2022, he paid some $3.205m to Mr Lockhart and his law firm to assist with Crown Land on Staniel Cay, Exuma, that he wanted to convert to commercial use.

“In addition, some of the funds were to assist in applying to The Bahamas’ Immigration Department for citizenship (likely permanent residency) for Mr Smith and his family,” the Interpol alert alleged. “By November 2022, nothing had materialised and Mr Smith requested his monies to be returned...The funds have not been received to date.”