Former Pulse Nightclub owner received over $1M insurance payout months after shooting

ORLANDO, Fla. — E-mails and insurance documents show how much money was paid out to the Pulse Nightclub owners Rosario and Barbara Poma less than two months after Pulse shooting tragedy-- and seven years before the city of Orlando agreed to spend $2 million for the property.

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The former owners sent their insurance policy to the OnePULSE Foundation chair last March.

In it, you can see the over million-dollar insurance payout they received for the Pulse site, and why they then intended to sell the property rather than donate.

Orlando Commissioner Patty Sheehan says she learned of the insurance payout right before the City voted in October to pay $2 million for the site of the pulse tragedy.

“As soon as I found out about it. I thought it was disgraceful,” Sheehan said.

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Documents indicate Barbara Poma and her husband Rosario received an insurance payout in excess of $1.3 million dollars, the policy’s limit.

The Pomas confirmed the payout to the OnePULSE Foundation chair in emails, just weeks before the Foundation separated from Barbara, its founder.

Rosario Poma sent a letter from their insurance dated August 1, 2016, less than two months after the nightclub shooting.

The letter shows the Pomas’ payout included $800,000 for the building, $400,000 for the business property, and $250,000 for loss of income.

“Here, they had already been paid. And yet they wanted more money,” Sheehan told 9 Investigates.

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Three months after the insurance payout, the Pomas and the City of Orlando were in talks to sell the property. Commissioners said then, the Pomas originally asked for $4 million for the Pulse site but settled on $2.25 million. But the Pomas backed out of that deal.

“We’re not profiting off this at all. Along with any other business, there’s debt. That’s what the money here will fund to do, is create a new Pulse,” said Barbara Poma in an interview with Channel 9 in November 2016.

Barbara Poma said in a statement to 9 Investigates the insurance payout had nothing to do with the decision to sell the property. She said they used the insurance payout for a list of expenses including paying staff payroll, property taxes, legal fees, security, and property maintenance.

However, Rosario Poma shared in an email to the OnePULSE Foundation last March, showing almost all the money they received from insurance went to pay off debt on the nightclub between the mortgage and a “buildout”.

Rosario said in the March email, they never recouped a million dollars of their cash investment with their business partner, Mike Panaggio-- adding in the email, “we have lost almost seven years of business income.”

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“You worry about some damn income!” said Tiara Parker, a Pulse shooting survivor. “Some people lost their children, their nieces, their nephews, their family. Some people lost their minds. "

Her cousin did not survive

Parker, her cousin Akyra Murray, and friend Patience Carter were all shot in the attack, and for more than three hours, they were held hostage by the gunman inside a bathroom at Pulse nightclub.

Murray did not survive.

“I lost my best friend,” Parker said.

Parker and other survivors say they feel the Pomas capitalized off the shooting.

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In October, the city bought the property from the Pomas for $2 million.

“I feel like you guys overpaid for what the building was worth,” Parker said, speaking of the city’s decision. “I just felt like it was an unfair situation. And yet again, we are someone’s meal ticket. My tragedy in that building is your meal ticket.”

Commissioner Sheehan said the council had no choice but to buy the property for the sake of finally completing a memorial.

“We were ripped off, the community was ripped off,” Sheehan told Channel 9.

Barbara Poma full statement:

“Our club was the victim of an unforeseen and horrific terrorist attack that tragically took the lives of 49 people. Unlike some other bars in downtown Orlando, for years we paid for and maintained insurance coverage on the club, which is a standard business practice. The monies received were used to continue to pay staff payroll, accounts payable, property taxes, legal fees, insurance on the sign, security, property maintenance -- all issues for which insurance monies are to be used when a business has been destroyed or damaged. Insurance on the business had nothing to do with our decisions regarding the property’s ownership.”

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