Judge finds Aboud coerced consultant over $10M investment loss

Busi­ness­man and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Gary Aboud used threats and in­tim­i­da­tion to force fi­nan­cial con­sul­tant Lawrence Mol­len­thiel to ac­cept li­a­bil­i­ty for a failed $10 mil­lion off­shore in­vest­ment, a High Court judge has found.

Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad made the find­ing on Mon­day as he dis­missed a law­suit by Aboud, his wife, Merylle Ma­habir, and her sis­ter, Na­tal­ie Ma­habir, seek­ing to re­cov­er loss­es on in­vest­ments in the Cay­man Is­lands-based Ki­jani Com­mod­i­ty Fund.

The judge up­held a coun­ter­claim by Mol­len­thiel and his com­pa­ny, In­vest­ment De­signs Lim­it­ed. They al­leged Aboud and an as­so­ciate co­erced Mol­len­thiel in­to sign­ing a doc­u­ment ac­cept­ing li­a­bil­i­ty dur­ing a four-hour meet­ing at his of­fice in 2017. Aboud was or­dered to pay Mol­len­thiel $25,000 in dam­ages for false im­pris­on­ment.