Opinion ID: 3012971
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Disposition of the Seized and Escrowed Funds.

Text: The seized and escrowed funds from the three properties — Juniper Street, Walnut Street and the Barclay — totaled approximately $1,938,000, including the $850,000 for Elizabeth McHenry. After the closing of the Barclay sale in June 1999, Elizabeth McHenry’s attorney began negotiations to cause the government to pay over to Elizabeth McHenry two-thirds of the total escrowed funds from Pantelidis’s real estate sales for what the attorney claimed was an “equitable interest” that Elizabeth McHenry (then 90 years old) and her deceased sister, Mary McHenry, had in Pantelidis’s real estate portfolio. According to the attorney, this equitable interest arose from an oral agreement between the McHenry sisters and Pantelidis early on in Pantelidis’s real estate career whereby the McHenrys allowed Pantelidis to use their funds to finance his real estate operations in return for a two-thirds interest in his real estate business. The government agreed to pay over two-thirds of the escrowed funds on the condition that Elizabeth McHenry terminate Pantelidis’s existing power of attorney over her funds. Ms. McHenry terminated Pantelidis’s existing power of attorney on May 5, 2000. Thereafter, the government, with Pantelidis’s agreement, paid over approximately $1,481,261 for the benefit of Ms. McHenry. According to the government, after the disbursement to Ms. McHenry, the following funds remain held to satisfy Pantelidis’s possible forfeiture obligations: (a) a $87,973.80 check, plus interest earned, in the custody of the U.S. Marshall and derived from the sale of 311 S. Juniper Street; (b) approximately $267,180 held in escrow from the proceeds of the sale of 1315 Walnut Street; and (c) approximately $150,000 in escrowed proceeds from the sale of the Barclay Hotel.