A New York lawyer who duped a clan of Mexican-American settlers in Texas out of an oil-rich island during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s won’t have to pay punitive damages.
Multimillionaire Gilbert Kerwin, 90, learned late Wednesday he owes a little less than $3 million in compensation, damages and lawyer fees, an amount determined by the Texas jury that found him liable for the swindle.
But that figure could jump from $10 million to $40 million depending on what the judge in the case establishes as an interest rate on the damages.
“We don’t want to seem greedy,” said Balli family member J.J. Martinez. “We just want a piece of the American pie.”
The family heirs had sued for $25 million.
For years, the land dispute has pitted Kerwin – a corporate lawyer from The Bronx – against hundreds of mostly poor, Mexican-American descendants of Padre Nicolas Balli, for whom the island is named.
But the coastal island has a past as colorful as the tropical birds that take refuge in its grapefruit groves and marshlands
In 1765, King Carlos III of Spain gave the 61,000-acre island to Father Balli as a gift.
Balli, who had no children when he died, willed most of the land to his nephew. As the family grew and expanded across southern Texas, little mind was paid to the barren beachfront property.
But by 1938, the once-prosperous clan had been worn down by drought and the Depression.
Enter New York lawyer Kerwin, fresh out of Harvard. He bought up the deeds to Padre Island scattered throughout the Balli family, promising to pay them royalties from leasing out the oil- and gas-drilling rights.
When family members later asked about the royalties, Kerwin responded that he owed them nothing because it was unclear whether they even owned the land they sold him.
In 1830, Kerwin argued, Balli descendants sold the land.
But Mexican documents entered into the court record showed that the new owner sold it back to the Ballis, receiving a refund when he returned the land deeds.
In the 1940s, Kerwin began leasing out the oil- and gas-drilling rights and selling the surface property to developers, turning a tidy profit. Today, he’s worth $68 million, his lawyers revealed.
During the long-running trial, animosity toward the elderly Bronx lawyer grew to such extremes that the judge finally barred any references to “Yankee carpetbagger” or “Anglo land speculator.”