Louis Bacon Attempts to Muzzle Bahamian Press

Louis Bacon

Louis Bacon is attempting to muzzle the Bahamian press through intimidation, utilizing his cheque book and lawyers. This is not a case of one or two law suits and threatening letters to journalists, it has been said that the Bacon legal team is targeting ten to twelve Bahamians to silence them and oddly, all of them were and are PLP supporters.

Recently The Tribune published a story “Billionaire's Claim Of Defamation” detailing how Bacon filed charges against an alleged contributor of a local blog, namely Bahamas Press.
Louis Bacon is also seeking an injunction against Earlin Williams for over four articles posted on BahamasPress.com, according to a Supreme Court writ dated July 11, 2012.

 Some of the words complained about, it's claimed in court documents, [in the article] meant and were understood to mean: that [Bacon] is running a sophisticated international smuggling and drug trafficking ring with the co-operation and/or consent of the previous FNM government of The Bahamas".  The article included "Today's smuggler and trafficker, Interpol Intelligence shows, is not the Hollywood image of Jack Sparrow or even Gordon Gecko or some internet wizard hacking into bank accounts and transferring millions at the whim of his fancy".  "The profile of today's modern day successful smuggler and trafficker is that of a highly successful investor with accolades for their business accumen and prowess coming from every internal quarter. These businessmen are the poster boys of various established institutions and fit very easily in the political mix of any country. Politicians want to be their friends".

In a different article concerning Bacon's legal team, it was stated: "Meet the three Louis Bacons on the right, the Louis Bacon who is suave, super intelligent, gritty, exact, austere money manager who has parlayed his Moore Capital Hedge Fund in to a billion dollar enterprise. On the left, the humorous, jocular, secretive, methodical Louis Bacon caught in a net web of Jack Sparros at Lyford and Kamalame Cays in The Bahama Islands. And in the middle, the Louis Bacon, who is cold, calculating, sinister and will use his wealth and power to crush anything or anyone that gets in his way very much the same way he attempted to drive his Lyford Cay neighbour, Peter Nygard, the Canadian fashion mogul from his home in the Bahamas"

It is important to note that a United States reporter for Business Insider wrote on Aug 9, 2012: "Staffers won't even tell you whether Bacon's in town. He's serious about confidentiality agreements and not above some intimidation. "If I talk, only bad things can happen," says James Capra of hedge fund Capra Asset Management in New York."

This is not the first time that Bacon’s local lawyers have sent threatening or intimidating letters to individual journalists and media houses in hopes of getting them to back off of Bacons trail and turn a blind eye to obvious news.

We understand that officials at JCN have also received such notices. Sources also indicate that several individual journalists have been approached by attorneys and threatened with defamation law suits. To make things worse, the former administration supported these actions by allowing these types of suits to be filed, leaving journalists to fend for themselves.


Some observers are of the opinion that Bacon is simply attempting to suppress the message by silencing the messenger. This will not happen with Ear to the Ground on the case; we intend on ensuring that both sides of the coin are presented in true journalistic form. That is the Freedom of the Press, the voice for the silent majority, and a main staple in a democratic society.

 One can only question the reasoning behind Bacon attacking journalists and obvious PLP supporters, when there are unanswered questions about a number of criminal acts. Some of them are presently being heard before Bahamian courts.