Utah Woman Shocked To Be Receiving Long-Ago Payment From Linda McMahon

For Pamela P. Behn, 1976 was a lifetime ago.

She had a different husband, a different life, a different home on the other side of the country.

Her days of running the Blue Lanam Stables in Colchester were a very distant memory until she was jolted back this week with telephone calls from two newspaper reporters about the long-ago bankruptcy of Linda McMahon, who is now running for the U.S. Senate and has become a multimillionaire in the ensuing years. Behn’s family had been listed as being owed $33,000 by McMahon from the bankruptcy.

Completely out of the blue, Behn was shocked when she received a call at her new home in Utah that she would finally be getting her money, plus interest – 36 years later.

“I got a call from McMahon’s office,’’ Behn said Friday in a telephone interview from Utah. “They have settled the whole thing, I think. They said there’s a check in the mail. I haven’t seen it.’’

Behn declined to reveal the precise amount of interest, but said she is quite satisfied.

“They offered a very fair settlement,’’ Behn said. “I have no qualms. I have no resentment. What their office offered was absolutely fair. … There’s no reason to think they wouldn’t come through on this. I’ve spoken to my ex-husband, and he’s more than satisifed.’’

McMahon announced Thursday night that the individual creditors would be paid back at an inflation rate of four times the original amount. In this case, the total with interest would be more than $132,000 in today’s dollars.

Now remarried after running the Colchester stable as Pam Lanam, she lives a quiet life as a retiree in Park City with her 78-year-old husband. She enjoys the beauty of Utah and had forgotten about the money she had been owed from her former horse farm.

“It’s all stuff I’ve written off emotionally,’’ she said. “Life is too short to be worried about things that happened 40 years ago. I would be in real trouble if I was still stewing over that.’’

Behn noted that discussing the past was similar to asking someone about what happened in high school. The precise details of the financial transaction years ago with the McMahons are still a bit vague to her.

“They had purchased our farm from us,’’ Behn recalled. “Then he had financial problems, so they weren’t able to complete the sale. I’m not so sure. It’s so long ago. I’m pretty sure they were partners in a group that was buying the farm.’’

Behn and her former husband had purchased about 50 acres of land in Colchester and created the horse farm on Route 16 near the town’s eastern border with Lebanon.

“We had built it,’’ she said. “I think it was, oh gosh, a 12-stall barn and an indoor arena.’’

A spokesman for McMahon declined to comment on the transaction.

After living in Vermont, Behn moved to Utah about 15 years ago and settled into her new community. By watching the national news, she said she was aware that McMahon had run for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and had spent $50 million of her own money in the losing effort. That campaign reminded Behn of her days in Colchester.

“Gee, I remember that name,’’ Behn recalled. “I vaguely remember them. I don’t remember them well. I’m not sure I met her. I met Vince. If he walked in my house today, I wouldn’t have a clue who he was. We didn’t sit around and have dinner with them.’’

Although she follows politics closely and is up to speed on the current campaign of longtime Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, Behn said she was unaware of the larger-than-life personality of Vince McMahon as he appears regularly in the wrestling ring and on national television.

“I’m a newspaper and public radio person,’’ Behn said. “I definitely don’t watch wrestling.’’

Behn said she was unaware of the latest developments in Connecticut, including the constant back-and-forth in the campaign  between McMahon and Democrat Chris Murphy. Murphy, an attorney who graduated from the University of Connecticut law school and Williams College, has been criticized by McMahon for missing rent payments in 2003 when he served as a state legislator and for missing mortgage payments in 2007 that led to a foreclosure lawsuit against him. Murphy later paid both debts, and the legal actions were withdrawn.

“I guess I owe something to her opponent,” Behn said. “I was told by her office that they couldn’t locate us when she ran two years ago. My name has changed because I’m remarried. I don’t how hard they did or didn’t try to locate us.”

She added, “Politics is a tough game. I’m glad I’m not in it. … Clearly, politically, she has to make good on this.”