Charges dropped in copter case
 |
|
||||||||||
The government has dropped charges against a Bellevue airline pilot and others who were indicted last year by a grand jury alleging they had improperly altered military-surplus helicopters to make them look like civilian Bell helicopters.
But two companies involved pleaded guilty to criminal actions that violated Federal Aviation Administration procedures.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle had alleged that the practice of substituting surplus military parts on civilian copters was dangerous.
However, in its motion to drop the charges, it stated that the FAA's senior expert disagreed. Prosecutors said the office did not have the resources to proceed with the case given the conflicting expert opinions.
Charges were dismissed against James Houston Anderson, a commercial pilot from Bellevue; Kim Stafford Powell, Anderson's former business partner; and James Culliton and Chester Rasberry, of a California company.
In dismissing the charges against the men, the government obtained a guilty plea from Intrex Helicopters, a Washington state company Anderson once led as president and which Powell continues to operate.
Anderson has since divested himself of any ownership of the company, according to his lawyers.
In the plea, the company acknowledged that it had forged FAA logs for a helicopter and signed the name of a mechanic who had been killed earlier in a plane crash.
The California company, Air Inc., also pleaded guilty to violating FAA rules in swapping a helicopter fuselage and putting an improper identification plate on it.
Mike Carter can be reached at 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com.