Villafana, Ann Marie C. (USAFLS) From: Villafana, Ann Marie C. (USAFLS) Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 4:32 PM To: Acosta, Alex (USAFLS) Cc: Sloman, Jeff (USAFLS) Subject: Follow up on the trust Issue Hi Alex — I wasn't sure if you knew that I actually did quite a bit of research on the issue of "the Trust." With Drew's help, I tracked down and spoke with the AUSA in Alaska who put together that agreement. His case did not involve damages, it was purely restitution. He also had a small number of identified victims (I think 12), and they all consented to the procedure. In Alaska, they also were able to persuade a small local bank to serve as the trustee, and they had a somewhat elaborate procedure for deciding who would get what money. There also was a Court order approving the procedure. Also, one of Starr's objections is that the his client was informed of who the victims were before he signed the agreement, but the same thing happened in Alaska. In a notice to the Court. the AUSA wrote: This filing is made ex parte because Boehm, in his piea agreement, waived any rights he had pertaining to the selection of beneficiaries and the disbursement of funds to such beneficiaries. My objections to the Trust concept were: ( I ) I could not bind the girls to an agreement that would involve waiving their rights to file private lawsuits; (2) since there would be no federal plea, there was no mechanism to involve the Court in administering the Trust and there would be no federal order of restitution; (3) I knew that all of the girls would not consent to such a procedure; (4) there was no way to estimate the damages of all of the girls to decide what the corpus amount should be; and (5) given how difficult the negotiations had been, I knew that creating and agrecin to an elaborate trust structure would be impossible. I did offer to include language about our Office and the for the girls sitting down with the defense to try in good faith to develop a trust, but that was rejected. I have copies of all of the documents that they used in Alaska, if you are interested. Thanks. A. Marie Walla Assistant U.S. Attorney 500 S. Australian Ave, Suite 400 West Palm Beach, FL 33401 Phone 561 209-1047 Fax 561 820-8777 Tracking: EXHIBIT 55 EFTA00226077