Panama’s Supreme Court is deciding whether a potential benefactor’s estate can give $50 million to the nation’s poor children

These are heady days for tiny Panama. It is undertaking a massive expansion of the Panama Canal, luring billions of dollars in maritime and high-tech investment that could make it the Hong Kong of the Americas. But here’s the other side: in the past few months, scores of toddlers have died of malnutrition in villages around the country. More than half of Panamanian children under 5 are at risk of suffering the same fate. That’s why, say friends of Wilson (Chuck) Lucom, who died last year at 88, the eccentric U.S. millionaire left as much as $50 million in his will for poor children’s charities in Panama. It’s the largest private gift ever made here. The will doesn’t single out which relief organizations will be recipients. But, as the director of a charity that may benefit says, it could have a “tremendous impact on our ability to save these children.”

That is, if the kids ever see the money. Lucom’s widow Hilda, 83, the frail matriarch of Panama’s prominent Arias family (a clan that has produced two of Panama’s Presidents), with the support of her children is battling to get the will declared invalid. They say the will’s U.S. executor, Florida tax attorney Richard Lehman, concocted the charity donation so he could split the money with other Lucom cronies. Hilda’s Panamanian lawyer, Hector Infante, known for political connections and tough tactics, has pressed criminal charges against Lehman–even accusing him of having euthanized Lucom. (That charge was dismissed.) Lehman has sued Hilda and Infante for defamation, but he no longer travels to Panama, fearing he would be arrested. Still, he says, “I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I gave up this case.” It is now in Panama’s Supreme Court, and a ruling could take months, if not years.”*

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