Couri Falsely Accuses Pavia & Harcourt of Being Involved in a $29M Scam

Based upon the bare-bone allegations in a complaint filed in the New York County Clerk's Office, James Couri accuses George Pavia and Pavia & Harcourt (Law Firm) of wrongfully taking $29 million from an estate.

The facts:

• The complaint is unverified (meaning the allegations in the complaint were not sworn to as true and accurate under the penalties of perjury);
• The complaint, dated April 14, 2016, has not been served upon George Pavia, the Law Firm, or the co-defendant. 
• The complaint alleges events that took place years before Pavia and the Law Firm were retained or had met the co-defendant. The co-defendant lives in Milan, Italy, was the decedent's trusted advisor and her named executor (hereafter Italian-Executor). The Italian-Executor is alleged to have used a letter, signed by the deceased, to transfer $9M in a Swiss bank to a bank account under his control. Common sense dictates that the Swiss bank would have verified the authenticity of the letter before transferring $9M. 
• Incredibly, the plaintiff (who is merely a temporary administrator appointed by a Justice of the Peace in Geneva, Switzerland) does not have a court finding that the deceased was incompetent at the time she signed the $9M transfer letter. Indeed, the evidence taken in a court in Geneva, Switzerland, was that the deceased was competent up and until the time of her death. 
• As mentioned, Pavia and the Law Firm had no involvement with the $9M transfer and no such involvement is alleged in the complaint.
• The balance of the complaint alleges that Pavia and the Law Firm failed to report income from certain overseas accounts in accordance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). It was further alleged that the failure resulted in the IRS imposing upon the estate not less than $10M in penalties and interest. First, the decedent died on January10, 2010 and FATCA did not go into effect until March 2011. Second, despite repeated demands to the temporary executor for the correspondence to and from the IRS that he claims supports the $10M damage claim, no documents have been produced. 
• A court in Paris issued a decision that found the temporary administrator to have exceeded his authority based upon his conduct in France.
• In addition, a court in Geneva, Switzerland, found the temporary administrator exceeded his authority and ordered him to report to the court the resources of the estate, his expenses and his fees. The temporary administrator has not reported to the court even though he has had adequate time to do so.