NEWS FLASH:
Banco Portugues do Atlantico Uncovers a Skeleton.
Since Actrade does most of its banking at Banco Portugues do Atlantico, and Robert Furstner a Director and Chairman of the Board's Audit Committee comes from Banco Portugues, I thought that it would be instructive to search the news media for information on the bank. This was the only local story, and I thought that you would would want it brought to your attention:
Copyright 1991 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday
September 24, 1991, Tuesday, NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 22
LENGTH: 278 words
HEADLINE: Man: Wife Buried in Woods
BYLINE: By Michael Slackman. STAFF WRITER
BODY:
A 67-year-old Holbrook man told police yesterday that when his wife died in May, he drove her in his pick-up truck to Calverton and buried her in the woods because he could not afford funeral arrangements, police said.
After meeting with detectives at their request and giving them his account yesterday, Harold Barnett led police to the wooded area where Esther Barnett was buried. Police exhumed the remains, which will be examined by the Suffolk County medical examiner. No cause of death was known, police said.
Barnett told police yesterday that his wife died in her sleep in May after complaining she did not feel well. Det. Lt. John Gierasch, commander of the Homicide Squad, said detectives were alerted to the death by relatives of Esther Barnett who only learned that she died last week after trying to reach her at her office at Banco Portugues do Atlantico on Wall Street in Manhattan, where she was a secretary.
Bank officials learned in the spring that she died after calling her husband to find out why she did not return to work, Gierasch said.
Detectives spent about a week investigating the case of Esther Barnett before approaching her husband yesterday. "We approached the husband . . . and he told us she died of natural causes in their home," Gierasch said.
By about 1 p.m., detectives and technicians from the Suffolk Medical Examiner's Office were digging up the remains about 100 feet off a dirt road, near Fresh Pond Avenue, in Calverton. No charges were filed yesterday against the husband, who could not be reached for comment. Police said that the Barnetts had been married in 1977. Barnett told police he had been an actor.
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I have no evidence that Mrs. Barnett worked for Mr. Furstner, nor that she helped Mr. Aharoni put all of the Actrade funds into an uninsured bank account with Banco Portugues do Atlantico on the Grand Cayman Island. I just thought that shareholders of Actrade would be pleased by the helpful, aggressive behavior of their bank.
Sincerely,
Bob Varney |
