By Al Calloway
Now you see it, now you don’t. Like a cheap magic frick, justice can disappear in a flash, through loopholes, slick tricks, skill maneuvering and cleaver tactics. So, you can win a jury decision for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud, and still get your property in foreclosure. Add to which, a judge can decide that you get no compensation for your property being used by the crooks who fraudulently held it for 8 years while your case wound its way through a labyrinth court system.
Having spent the last 8 years following the Broward Elks Lodge case through every court hearing, change of lawyers and judge shopping (3 different judges), I am convinced that had Nadine Hankerson, Ph.D., not been able to dig deep in her personal resources and hustle other funds, the Elks Lodge Project would never have gotten to a successful jury trial. Deep pocket lenders tried incessantly to get the Elks group to capitulate and failed. However, the national Elks head honcho, Grand Lodge Exalted Ruler, Leonard J, Polk, Jr., Esq., put his heavy foot, no, both feet on the scale, and he is why Fort Lauderdale Elks Lodge #652 is now in foreclosure!
Polk slicked Nicholas P. Merriweather, Esq., Elks Lodge #652 attorney, to side with him and cut a deal with the Sator Investments, LLC lender, HIFIV. (Polk’s only role in the case was as a witness!) Sator and Eutsey got lots of money on the Elks Lodge deed that Eutsey scammed from a group of stupid Elks leaders back in 20 8. Merriweather was hired by Hankerson to defend Elks Lodge #652. He got pulled into a conflict of interest trap by consenting to represent Polk and the Elks Grand Lodge, at the same time. Both he and Polk are also guilty of a breach because they acted without consent from Hankerson and Elks Lodge #652. That is why Hankerson went to the Florida Bar with a formal complaint against Merriweather.
This protracted legal battle over Elks Lodge #652 property on NW 2nd Street in Fort Lauderdale is about a lot of money, at least twice as much now than 8 years ago when the Elks Lodge #652 fraud case was filed by Hankerson. It is quite clear that the deep pocket lender HIFIV cared less that Eutsey and his Sator Investments, LLC, did not have correct financials in place to secure a huge loan on a valuable property at the edge of Fort Lauderdale’s downtown, which is currently booming in construction and gentrification. However, HIFIV, we see you. You have no worries about Sator, because at the right time, you planned to get the property from Sator and do what your millions can. Sator is really no challenge. Sator had a less than 550 credit score, yet HIFIV gave him $1, 365,000? Please! “But he had his hands on the pulse of the land collateralized worth millions, The Pride of Fort Lauderdale, Elks Lodge #652,” said Dr. Nadine Hankerson.
The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World (IBPOEW), had its origin in September 1898 in Cincinnati, Ohio, when Arthur James Riggs and Benjamin Franklin Howrd established Alpha Lodge No. l . The two men were granted a copyright as an organization. “The organization struggled against racism and legal efforts to deny the existence,” according to the National Elks history. “On June 13, 1902 Emma Virginia Kelly organized the Daughters of Elks in Norfolk, Virginia which became an auxiliary body to the Brothers of Elks. The first Temple was Norfolk Temple No. 1 in Norfolk, Virginia.”
I cite the above because our history is very important. There are thousands of Elks Brothers and Daughters across the length and breadth of America and abroad, and hundreds of Lodges and Temples. And Elks properties are valuable, and as a benevolent organization, the Elks is valuable in community.