7 News Belize

Hours Later, Buckley Gets $50k; Says That’s Half Of What he Was Promised
posted (August 9, 2013)
So, Buckley contacted his attorney, who reached out to the Deputy Solicitor General, Nigel Hawke, to find out why the money had still not been delivered.

He wasn't expecting to hear any good news about money coming in, but a couple hours later, his attorney Dickey Bradley, contacted him saying that 2 freshly cut checks were waiting for him.

7news was there when Buckley finally got some of that money in hand, and here's that report:

Daniel Ortiz Reporting

2 hours after Buckley was disappointed with that check at his credit union account, we found him outside of the Central Bank of Belize with 2 government cheques in hand.

One of the checks was for $35,000, and the other was for $15,000, both made out to his attorney, Richard "Dickey" Bradley. That's a total of $50,000, a substantial increase, given that he had no money hours ago.

Bradley made arrangements to have the money transferred to Buckley's account, and then they dashed off to Saint John's Credit Union, after all, this was a Friday evening, and time was winding down.

Buckley went in, and half hour later, he came outside, finally with some good news, but he still had a complaint.

Steven Buckley - Finally Got Paid
"As far as I see is that they promised me $100,000 that they would have given me, but they only gave me $50,000. I have to take care of that and try and take care of my kids with that for right now."

Reporter
"What is your feeling because when we left you earlier today at 12:00, you didn't have anything and now you have $50,000 - what is your feeling that you can move and do other things now?"

Steven Buckley
"I feel better now because at least I can move around and take care of my family a little bit better. It is for taking care of my family and to put them in school and try and take care of them to the fullest for right now."

So, while has $50,000 in the account, he was only able to withdraw $2,000 today, given that this is the policy of his credit union.

Steven Buckley
"I can't get out the amount of money that I want; I only can take out around $2000."

Daniel Ortiz
"So that's what you have right now in hand?"

Steven Buckley
$2,000 I have right now in hand - my family will feel happy for it because they really need it too."

But even if he would have been given $100,000 as a partial payment, Buckley says that no amount of money can compensate him for the damage that's been done to him.

Daniel Ortiz
"No matter what amount of money that they did decide on - it could never be what was the worth of your health."

Steven Buckley
"It could never be no health of no wealth, could never - I can't do what I used to do again and many days I will sit down and cry about it."

Reporter
"You feel that despite that you got this money, that there's still a lot that the police and the government owe you?"

Steven Buckley
"Well right now they owe me at least over 3 million dollars - they owe me more than that because my life doesn't value money."

Today, 7News spoke to Prime Minister Dean Barrow via phone, and he told us that yes, indeed, he had promised Buckley $100,000 as a partial payment.

He explained that he intended to provide this money to Buckley, but when he insisted on bringing in his lawyer, the Prime Minister had to step away and allow the government attorneys to negotiate because that was proper protocol.

Barrow told us that he inquired into the payments this afternoon, and he was told by the Government attorneys that Buckley was only going to get $35,000 today. The attorneys explained that Dickey Bradley wrote to Government indicating that Buckley would accept that amount as the first payment.

Barrow said that he instructed the attorneys to increase that payment from $35,000 to $50,000, hence the reason why Buckley ended up with 2 cheques. He told us that he felt that Buckley was not getting a fair preliminary amount, and that's why that decision was made to prepare a second cheque.

He added finally that when Buckley insisted on his attorney, that initial offer of $100,000 had to be withdrawn because there was a formal negotiation between the attorneys from both sides, and he could not interfere in that process.

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