Las Vegas Review-Journal Review-Journal Wednesday, April 01, 1998 Airplane broker convicted in scam demands new trial Lawyer says Sparks company's involvement hidden Associated Press WASHINGTON -- An airplane broker convicted in a scam at the Forest Service is demanding a new trial and leveling new accusations about CIA ties to the aircraft exchange program. Roy Reagan of Medford, Ore., is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tucson, Ariz., today on charges he conspired to steal 22 C-130A transport planes and six P-3A submarine attack planes from the Forest Service program. But his lawyer, former U.S. Attorney Melvin McDonald of Arizona, is arguing for a new trial based on allegations the Justice Department hid information about the involvement of a company with a reputation for doing intelligence work for the United States and the United Kingdom. An official for the Nevada company, Heavylift International Inc. of Sparks, said his company has been confused with another of the same name based in London. Federal prosecutors say the alleged connection has been fabricated. "We withheld nothing. The allegations are untrue," Assistant U.S. Attorney Claire Lefkowitz said from Tucson on Tuesday. Nevertheless, U.S. District Judge Richard Bilby scheduled time for McDonald to make the argument today prior to the sentencing, which could range up to five years in prison for Reagan and former Forest Service aviation director Fred Fuchs. McDonald says Reagan and Fuchs were made the scapegoats in a scheme involving a half-dozen firefighting contractors and their business partners, all who escaped prosecution. One of the contractors, T&G Aviation of Chandler, Ariz., leased aircraft to a Central American airline that U.S. prosecutors have identified as a front for Colombian drug traffickers. McDonald said in court papers in March the Justice Department failed to disclose evidence that contractor James Venable of Hemet Valley, Calif., tried to sell Forest Service air tankers through Heavylift International. McDonald bases his claims on a letter from Venable to Heavylift's William Eck in 1992, and affidavits from two men who claim to have worked for the CIA, Gene Wheaton of Winchester, Calif., and Gary Eitel of Gig Harbor, Wash. "It has become clear that there was critical evidence known to the Department of Defense and Department of Agriculture (Office of Inspector General) which was withheld from defendants," jeopardizing their right to a fair trial, McDonald said in court papers filed in recent weeks. Wheaton, a retired military criminal investigator, said he learned while assisting in the probe of the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s that Heavylift International "had a reputation for being connected to both the British and American intelligence communities and was used by both governments in the clandestine movement of weapons to mercenaries and revolutionary groups around the world." McDonald said Eitel provided government investigators with evidence that Eck was a possible CIA operative involved in transferring ownership of C-130s to foreign countries and Third World governments. "There is a huge misunderstanding here. It must be Heavylift of England, not Heavylift International of USA," Eck said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Sparks. Eck acknowledged purchasing two former Forest Service C-130s from Pacific Harbor Capital of Portland, Ore., which had repossessed them from T&G Aviation. But he said it was "a straightforward business deal" and denied any wrongdoing. "We have never hauled weapons. We're not those kind of people," Eck said. He said one of the two planes remains in Marana, Ariz., where it was when he bought it, and the other was sold to a fish-hauling company in South Africa. Lefkowitz, in court papers filed March 19, rejected Reagan's claim that Eck was a CIA operative. She discounted Eitel's claim that Eitel had worked in an "undercover operation" led by government agents investigating Eck and Pacific Harbor. She said federal agents found no evidence of CIA involvement. -----------------------------------------------
