Millionaire Gets Prison Term

TACOMA - A man who made his millions from the invention of an airplane hinge has been sentenced to two months in prison for hiring a man to wiretap his estranged wife's telephone during a bitter divorce case.

Gary Allan Bandy must also pay a $15,000 fine and serve three years of supervised release and 300 hours community service, according to a sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess.

James Wilburn, the man Bandy hired to carry out the wiretap, received a 30-month sentence in connection with the crime. Part of his sentence was attributed to charges that Wilburn, who had a prior felony conviction, illegally possessed firearms.

The FBI began investigating Bandy and others in July after Bandy's divorce attorney, Steven Fields, failed to hang up his speaker phone after leaving a message with the attorney representing Bandy's wife, Eva.

The couple had fought over custody of their only son, and Bandy told investigators he had hoped to use the wiretapped information to prove Eva Bandy was an unfit mother.