Palmares Festival
Jan. 20: Tico bullfights, 7 p.m. Jan. 21: horse exhibit, 7 p.m. Jan. 22: carnival, 5:30 p.m. Jan. 23: 10 km athletic race, 3 p.m.; cultural show, 6 p.m. Jan. 24: rock concert by Los Auténticos Decadentes of Argentina, noon; bull-riding championship, 3 p.m.; Tico bull run, 7 p.m. Jan. 25: Tico bullfights, 3 and 7 p.m.; fireworks, 9 p.m., www.fiestaspalmares.com.

Santa Cruz Festival
In honor of the Cristo de Esquipulas, with Tico bullfights, horse parade, oxcart parade, rides, cultural events, Santa Cruz, Guanacaste.

Handicrafts Workshop
Ages 7-16, Jan. 20, 2-5 p.m., San Joaquín de Flores, register at 8890-2378.

Cornell University Wind Ensemble in concert
To benefit Canadian Charitable Association Outreach Committee, 8 p.m., Eugene O'Neill Theatre, CCCN, reserve at 2282-1146, lynfred@racsa.co.cr.

The sluggish opening of the cellular phone market in Costa Rica continues to be prolonged, but it appears an official plan of action is now in place. If all goes according to the timeline laid out by the Superintendent of Telecommunications (SUTEL) on Monday, three new cell phone competitors will enter the market, offering service plans and coverage, by the first quarter of 2011.

SUTEL officials announced the timetable and explained how new providers can gain entry to the market and begin operations during a public forum held at the Hotel Real Intercontinental in Escazú, west of San José.

Companies such as Digicel, Millicom, Telefónica, Cable & Wireless and América Móvil are interested in bidding to offer cell phone service, according to SUTEL.

A host of potential competitors have been vying for entry in since last January, when Costa Rica entered the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. (CAFTA), breaking up the long-standing monopoly to offer telecommunications services held by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE).

In February, SUTEL was created to serve as the regulatory body, tasked with setting up appropriate guidelines to usher in the new era for the Costa Rican mobile industry.

International mobile providers continued to pose one question to SUTEL: “When can we enter the market?”

It appears that question was finally answered Monday.

“This is the beginning of the process of granting approval into the mobile telephone market in the country,” said George Miley, the president of SUTEL. “We believe that in September we will be giving approval to the country's new operators.”

Miley went on to detail the timeline for entry, starting Feb. 5, when SUTEL will begin accepting bids. Using what Miley referred to as a “hybrid auction,” for three months SUTEL will review the technical and financial plans of the companies vying to compete. On April 20, SUTEL will send a list of three approved companies to the Executive Branch for review. If approved, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias will sign the agreement on May 5, three days before the conclusion of his presidential term on May 8.

SUTEL said only four companies, ICE included, will provide cellular coverage in Costa Rica, at least in the early years of the open market. Once approved, the other three companies will gain access to Costa Rica's air waves for 15 years.

See the Jan. 22 print or digital edition of The Tico Times for more on this story.

Costa Rican Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) have confiscated 3,000 jewels valued at $3 million from United States citizen John Felix Bender's home in La Florida de Barú, in the Southern Zone region of Pérez Zeledón, 10 days after he was found dead there.

Officials did not know about the treasure when they found Bender with a bullet wound to the head on Jan. 8.

Initially, officials considered Bender's death a suicide. He was found with a 9-millimeter gun next to his body. But a forensic examination that analyzed the bullet trajectory determined that the shot could not have been taken by Bender's own hand. The OIJ is now investigating the case as a homicide.

Officials on Monday interrogated Bender's widow – whose last name is Patton – at a hospital in Escazú, west of San José, where she has been interned since Jan. 9. On Tuesday, the Prosecutor's Office ordered four months of preventative prison for Patton for the suspected murder of John Bender.

According to the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT), both Bender and Patton received “investor resident” status in Costa Rica on March 16, 2001, and became permanent residents here in April 2009. Bender founded the private Boracayán wildlife refuge in 2002, which has been recognized by the Environment Ministry.

The Public Security Ministry flew the jewels by helicopter to the ministry's San José headquarters in two shipments, one last Friday and one on Monday. They have since deposited the valuables in a vault in an undisclosed bank. Press officials said the OIJ will investigate the type of business Bender was running from his property in Pérez Zeledón.

Nearly nine months after arriving at Buen Pastor women's prison in San José, Christine Wenger-Bartee was taken back to the United States in handcuffs earlier this month.

According to the U.S. Embassy, she and her husband Linn Morris Bartee, both of northern California, were arrested and transferred on tax evasion charges.

For the better part of 2009, Christine fought off attempts to return her to her home country, while living on rice and beans in prison and bunking with women convicted of far more serious crimes than her own.

Her lawyer, Arcelio Hernández, successfully blocked three prior extradition attempts while Bartee lobbied for refugee status. Yet this last, successful attempt, on Jan. 9, was allegedly done without due notification and outside of normal business hours.

“It was basically kidnapping,” Hernández wrote in an e-mail to The Tico Times. “(The Osa court) made sure I had no chance to file a habeas corpus … and did not let my clients call me.”

The Bartee's case is being prosecuted by the Eastern District of California Bankruptcy Court, where they are being charged with conspiring to evade the payment of federal income taxes, making false statements in a bankruptcy case and fraudulently concealing property in connection with a bankruptcy case, according to U.S. attorney Philip Ferrari. The maximum sentence the Bartees face is five years.

In May, Bartee, 51, was taken from her home in Tres Ríos de Coronado and separated from her husband and granddaughter. She was wanted on tax evasion charges, the result of a bankruptcy filing gone wrong, she said. During the process of filing for bankruptcy, she said she was “cheated and tricked.”

In her absence, she said, the U.S. government seized her ranch and drained her of her assets. She told The Tico Times in a September interview, “Any debts I left behind were more than paid off with what they took.”

While in Buen Pastor, Bartee said she survived in part because of the company of Ellen Stubenhaus, who was arrested weeks after Bartee on charges of conspiracy against the U.S. government. Stubenhaus, who came to Costa Rica in 2001, remains at Buen Pastor.

According to the U.S. embassy, the number of extradition requests made to Costa Rica varies from year to year, but average from 10 to15 annually.

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