I have hesitated about going public with this situation, but since there was a major article in the Dallas News this past Sunday, I feel compelled to shine the light on it.
Donald Fontana is a friend and occasional client of mine, and a good man. When I met Don, he had a 135 operation with a 414 and a 421C; later, pared back to the 421C. Don flew charter clients all over the south, including a whole bunch of hunters and the like. A sound business, a good and experienced pilot, and a pretty darned good sounding board and mentor for me. Shortly after I got my IR, I was faced with flying home from San Antonio to Addison, where the ceilings were stubbornly stuck at 400' , and Don was (by coincidence) there on the ramp with his 421. At my request, he graciously flew my wife and son home - I just did not want them relying upon me for my first ever hard IFR.
In 2009, he flew charter customers (who had been referred to him by the airport manager at an airport in south Texas) to Georgia. After checking into his hotel room, he was visited by members of law enforcement, both local and federal, including DEA/ICE, who informed him that the charter customers were, in fact, transporting drugs.
Remember the video about never speaking to law enforcement without a lawyer present? I give you Exhibit A.
Presuming that an honest man has nothing to hide, he spoke at length with the peace officers and the feds, who used his unwitting comments during their discussions as admissions of guilt and complicity.
Don was held in a federal jail for eight months because, as a pilot, he was a “flight risk.” This, for a sixty-something man with a wife and stable home of decades.
The actual drug traffickers plead guilty in plea bargains, and all told the feds that they went to great lengths to conceal what they were doing from Don, telling him that they were in the oil business and were carrying test and survey equipment. Nonetheless, the feds prosecuted him. At trial, it took the jury less than ninety minutes to find him, Not Guilty.
A free man at last, he thought his troubles were behind him, but the federal lawyers don’t take losing well; they filed a forfeiture action to take his 421, his means of livelihood, away. The painful thing about federal forfeiture actions is, it is the burden of the “claimant” to prove that he or she had no knowledge or reasonable suspicion of the vehicle being used for illegal activity.
So, starting Thursday, in a federal courtroom in Atlanta, he will be fighting to get his plane, parked for three years in Florida, back.
Why they feel compelled to pile insult upon injury, I do not know; but ask yourself - “Could this happen to me?”
Because, you know it could.
Donald Fontana is a friend and occasional client of mine, and a good man. When I met Don, he had a 135 operation with a 414 and a 421C; later, pared back to the 421C. Don flew charter clients all over the south, including a whole bunch of hunters and the like. A sound business, a good and experienced pilot, and a pretty darned good sounding board and mentor for me. Shortly after I got my IR, I was faced with flying home from San Antonio to Addison, where the ceilings were stubbornly stuck at 400' , and Don was (by coincidence) there on the ramp with his 421. At my request, he graciously flew my wife and son home - I just did not want them relying upon me for my first ever hard IFR.
In 2009, he flew charter customers (who had been referred to him by the airport manager at an airport in south Texas) to Georgia. After checking into his hotel room, he was visited by members of law enforcement, both local and federal, including DEA/ICE, who informed him that the charter customers were, in fact, transporting drugs.
Remember the video about never speaking to law enforcement without a lawyer present? I give you Exhibit A.
Presuming that an honest man has nothing to hide, he spoke at length with the peace officers and the feds, who used his unwitting comments during their discussions as admissions of guilt and complicity.
Don was held in a federal jail for eight months because, as a pilot, he was a “flight risk.” This, for a sixty-something man with a wife and stable home of decades.
The actual drug traffickers plead guilty in plea bargains, and all told the feds that they went to great lengths to conceal what they were doing from Don, telling him that they were in the oil business and were carrying test and survey equipment. Nonetheless, the feds prosecuted him. At trial, it took the jury less than ninety minutes to find him, Not Guilty.
A free man at last, he thought his troubles were behind him, but the federal lawyers don’t take losing well; they filed a forfeiture action to take his 421, his means of livelihood, away. The painful thing about federal forfeiture actions is, it is the burden of the “claimant” to prove that he or she had no knowledge or reasonable suspicion of the vehicle being used for illegal activity.
So, starting Thursday, in a federal courtroom in Atlanta, he will be fighting to get his plane, parked for three years in Florida, back.
Why they feel compelled to pile insult upon injury, I do not know; but ask yourself - “Could this happen to me?”
Because, you know it could.
