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A Michigan couple has been detained for weeks in Mexico after what their attorney described as a disagreement over their timeshare in Cancun.
Christy Akeo, 60, and Paul Akeo, 58, who live in Spring Arbor, Michigan, have been held in a Cereso, Cancun, prison for more than three weeks since they traveled there for vacation earlier this month, their daughter and attorney told Fox News Digital.
“She doesn’t have anything. You don’t even get toilet paper in these places. So, it’s just a very, very scary environment, from what she explained,” Lindsey Lemke Hull, Christy Akeo’s daughter, told Fox News Digital of her mother. “I think she tends to keep a lot from my brother and I when we talk to her, just out of protection. … We are fearful for her … life, Paul’s life, just because we don’t know what’s going to happen to them at any given time.”
Aerial panoramic view of Cancun hotels along a beach. (iStock)
The Akeos’ daughter, Lemke Hull — a two-time national champion gymnast who helped expose former Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse —refused to make the payment for their release at the request of her parents.
The Palace Company also offered to pay the Akeos a nominal sum in exchange for an agreement that they would not publish negative social media posts about Palace Elite Resorts, according to a copy of the proposed agreement shared with Fox News Digital.
The proposed non-disparagement agreement states that the Akeos “shall refrain from making or publishing, in writing or verbally … any disparaging, derogatory, or negative comments about PALACE ELITE RESORTS, S.A. DE C.V., together with its ownership … in or on websites, interviews, press releases, news releases, media releases, press statements or video releases, articles, commentaries, written, audio or visual (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads, or the like, advertising or marketing materials, blogs, chat-rooms, etc.).”
Aerial view of an almost empty beach in Cancun, Quintana Roo state, Mexico, on March 28, 2020. (ELIZABETH RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2023, Christy joined the “Palace Resorts Members – Disappointed & Frustrated – Discuss & Take Action,” which had about 8,000 users, in which Palace members discuss their grievances with the resort company. Christy then became a moderator of the group.
The non-disparagement agreement, which the Akeos did not sign, requests that the Akeos each “expressly acknowledge that the Disparaging Statements have damaged, and continue to damage, Palace Elite causing damages in excess of SEVEN MILLION U.S. Dollars ($7,000,000.00).”
An INTERPOL Red Notice was issued to facilitate the couple’s arrest. A Mexico judge has ruled that the case will proceed to trial, according to both the Akeos and the Palace Company. The Akeos will remain in custody until then.