Opinion ID: 705082
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Concealment

Text: 10 On December 17, 1981 letters of administration for Marley's estate were issued to co-trustees Rita Marley, Mutual Security Merchant Bank & Trust Company, a Jamaican bank, and George Desnoes, a prominent Jamaican attorney. Mutual Security, acting through George Louis Byles, its managing director, had primary responsibility for administering the estate. At a meeting to examine the estate's assets and liabilities, Steinberg told Byles that a large portion of Bob Marley's assets had been transferred to others before his death. At a later meeting on January 4, 1982 where Byles, Rita Marley, Steinberg, and Zolt were present, Steinberg specifically indicated that the BVI Companies were not part of the estate because they had been transferred to Rita Marley before Bob Marley's death. 11 On June 14, 1982 Byles called another meeting in Jamaica, attended by Zolt, Steinberg, Desnoes, and Rita Marley. When Byles again inquired about the ownership of the BVI Companies, Steinberg gave him copies of the forged share transfers, dated June 6, 1978, showing that Bob Marley transferred his shares in the companies to Rita Marley before his death. Steinberg and Zolt also represented to Byles that the assets of Tuff-Gong Delaware barely exceeded that company's liabilities. 12 Defendants further led Byles to believe that Bob Marley had assigned his contract rights with Island Records to one of the BVI Companies. In accounting to the estate over the next six years, defendants reported only minimal amounts of royalty proceeds, failing to remit to the estate millions of dollars they had received and transferred to bank accounts of the NV Company, the BV Company, Rita Marley, Steinberg, and Zolt.