{"id":44776,"date":"2013-12-11T21:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T02:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/target\/widow-sues-fontainebleu-owner-over-chopper-crash-in-bahamas-that-killed-her-husband"},"modified":"2013-12-11T21:00:25","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T02:00:25","slug":"widow-sues-fontainebleu-owner-over-bahamas-chopper-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/12\/widow-sues-fontainebleu-owner-over-bahamas-chopper-crash","title":{"rendered":"Widow Sues Fontainebleu Owner Over Bahamas Chopper Crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/zFhlt.Em_.56.jpeg\" alt=\"Widow sues Fontainebleu owner over chopper crash in Bahamas that killed her husband\" width=\"253\" height=\"370\" \/>A new lawsuit accuses Fontainebleau owner Jeffrey Soffer of improperly taking the controls of a helicopter before it crashed in the Bahamas, then scheming to cover up his role as pilot to prevent litigation from the widow of a close friend killed on impact.<\/p>\n<p>Soffer claimed he was a passenger in the chopper that crashed into the grounds of an exclusive Bahamas resort on Thanksgiving Day last year. Lance Valdez, a tax attorney living in the Bahamas, died on impact. Soffer, pilot David Pearce, and Soffer executive Dainel Riordan and his wife, Paula, were injured. The lawsuit claims Soffer\u2019s pilot license didn\u2019t allow him to fly the chopper, and that he hustled away from the smoldering wreck in order to \u201cflee\u201d before any crash investigation could be conducted.<\/p>\n<p>Soffer arranged for a trip to Miami in a friend\u2019s corporate jet, and was admitted to Ryder\u2019s trauma center for treatment.<\/p>\n<p>The federal suit, filed in Miami by Valdez\u2019s widow, Daria \u201cDasha\u201d Pastouhkova Gogoleva, quickly gained national media attention, thanks to Soffer\u2019s status as the new husband to supermodel Elle Macpherson.<\/p>\n<p id=\"mct-ai-attriblink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2013\/12\/11\/3812681\/widow-sues-soffer-over-helicopter.html\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to read the complete article at www.miamiherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawsuit accuses Fontainebleau owner Jeffrey Soffer of improperly taking the controls of a helicopter before it crashed in the Bahamas, then scheming to cover up his role as pilot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[331,32,31,107],"class_list":["post-44776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-aviation","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}