Cnn
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A couple from Michigan was released Thursday after spending almost a month in a Mexican prison for a payment dispute with a multi-ownership company, according to Michael Gordon, spokesperson for the office of the Michigan representative, Tom Barrett.
Paul Akeo, a 58 -year -old navy veteran, and his wife Christy, 60, were placed in police custody after their plane landed in Cancun on March 4, according to their family.
The Mexican state prosecutors of Quintana Roo, where Cancun is, accused the Akeos of defrauding a host company. The couple was released and their criminal charges were rejected after concluding a compensation agreement with the company, prosecutors said in a statement on Thursday.
As part of the agreement, the couple agreed to pay damages which would then be distributed to three non-profit organizations, according to prosecutors.
The case stems from a multi -ownership agreement in 2021 between the Akeos and the Palace Elite, a subsidiary of the Palais company, John Manly, lawyer for the AKEO family, previously told CNN.
The couple’s family said the allegations against them were false. Through their lawyers, the AKEOS said they had successfully challenged the charges of their credit card from a vacation company, according to which they claim to have violated their contract by providing no services.
The couple returned to the United States and had to land in Michigan shortly before midnight, Gordon said.
Manly also confirmed that the couple had been released and returned home on Thursday. He thanked the member of the Congress Barrett, calling him “hero in my book”, as well as the special envoy Adam Boehler and President Donald Trump.
“President Trump, I know that he personally got involved in this and that they wanted him at home, so I give him a lot of credit,” Manly told CNN on Thursday evening. “No American should have to bear what these people have endured. But for these three men, I think they would always be sitting there.”
In a statement, Lindsey Hull and Michael Lemke thanked the government’s representatives for helping to provide the release of their parents, specifically highlighting the commitment of the representative Barrett.
“He went to Cancun at great personal risks, camped in prison and clearly said that he would not go home without them,” they said in Thursday’s statement. “His heroic efforts as a veteran represent the most beautiful traditions of the military of our nation to never leave an American.”
“No American should be held hostage to the requests of a private company all over the world,” they said.
Hull and Lemke added that their parents will be treated for “diseases and trauma inflicted on them during their captivity”.
In a declaration on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Palais company also thanked Trump, Barrett and Boehler for their mediation efforts.
“The company of the Palais and the AKEOS agree that $ 116,587.84, the amount which was disputed by the AKEOS and which is reimbursed to them by American Express, will be donated to a non-profit organization established in Mexico in Mexico,” said the spokesperson. “Each party regrets that this incident has occurred.”
Manly told CNN in a March declaration that the couple was “detained in a hellish hole in a Mexican maximum security prison”.
Barrett decried the “horrible conditions” of prison on X after visiting the couple there on Wednesday.
Hull had previously told CNN that she was concerned about the health of her parents in prison.
“Their lives are in danger. Their health is declining. We have to bring these people home,” said Hull, referring to his parents. “We just don’t have another option. They will not be seated in prison indefinitely.”
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the couple’s release. A spokesperson for the State Department previously declared to CNN that he was “aware of the detention reports of two American citizens in Mexico”, but refused to offer details.
Hull said that last month, his parents had been placed in police custody and said that arrest warrants were issued for them in Mexico after the derogation of a criminal complaint by the Palace company alleging fraud.
“We assume that it has something to do with time shared with Palace Resorts,” she recalls her stepfather telling her in a call the day her parents were arrested.
Prosecutors in Mexico alleged In a declaration of March 15 in 2022, the AKEOS canceled 13 payments by credit card to a hotel chain totaling more than $ 116,500. Prosecutors did not explain the possible evidence, but said that the activity was fraud.
Through their lawyers, AKEOS say that Palace has not provided services promised a few months in their multi -ownership contract. The couple then filed a complaint with their credit card company requesting a reimbursement of almost $ 117,000 in palace payments.
The couple argued that the vacation company had violated their contract. Manly said that in a statement last week, the AKEOS had been detained “because they had palace accusations (sic) and not to provide services with American Express, criticized the company on Facebook and alerted others who felt injured by Palace.”
Manly added that the company retaliated against the couple for challenging the accusations.
A spokesperson for the company of the Palais and the AKEOS lawyers both provided CNN a documentation showing a prolonged dispute on the use of membership services by the couple and what could be considered as contract violations.
The Palais spokesman told CNN in statements last week that they had filed a complaint with the Mexican authorities in August 2023 after the AKEOS “fraudulently challenge legitimate credit card charges and publicly encouraged others to do the same.”
“The Akeos began to challenge their membership fees with their credit card companies,” Palace said in a statement last week. “These disputes – despite the services they had actively used – were granted,” the company said in a statement.
Palace claims that the couple then went to Facebook and “boasted of these retrofing and encouraged others to follow suit”.
Last September, palace lawyers sent a letter of transfer and desire to Christy Akeo saying that his publications on Facebook were illegal because she had informed members of how to put an end to their agreements “using illegal and fraudulent means”, according to a copy of the letter that the company provided to CNN.
In addition, by announcing the accusations of fraud last month, Mexican prosecutors underlined publications on social networks, alleging that Christy Akeo had used them “to inform how the said fraud was committed against the hotel chain”.
Palace previously declared that he had also filed a related civil action to request financial damage and that “all of his actions are entirely in accordance with Mexican law”.
“The main thing is that it is a civil dispute that can be easily argued,” MANLY told CNN in a declaration of Friday. “The palace is not allowed to force a regulation by arrested the Akeos and thrown into a dangerous Mexican prison.”
Hull previously told CNN that her family had received no notice of criminal charges that she was aware of and said her mother went to social networks to share her negative experience with other palace customers. However, she disconcerted why social media activity may have contributed to the arrest.
“My mother was very clear about this in this Facebook group where people were looking for information on what to do when you get these memberships,” said Hull. “If there are 8,000 people struggling with the same thing, and the same disappointments with the Palace Resorts, and how they treat their members, you may have to look in the mirror and make a change.”
