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Felony pilot

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   http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3402854.html

http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3402854.html

Wellstone pilot had felony record
Paul McEnroe and Dan Browning
Star Tribune

Published Nov. 1, 2002 CONR01

Richard Conry, the chief pilot who flew U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife, daughter and three aides on last Friday's fatal flight, had a felony record for mail fraud and served at a federal prison camp in South Dakota in 1990, according to court records and attorneys.

Roger Wikner, the owner of the charter company said Thursday that he was not aware of Conry's criminal record but that the company, Executive Aviation, performs background checks on prospective employees. However Wikner said he did not know whether the background check included a search for criminal convictions.

"We're required today to do criminal background checks," Wikner said, referring to a rule imposed after the 9/11 attacks.

U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger said Thursday that his staff retrieved the court file on Conry's fraud case but declined to say why. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continue to investigate the crash, whose cause likely will not be determined for months. As part of that process, Safety Board investigators conduct an exhaustive review of the flight crew. NTSB officials did not immediately return phone calls Thursday.


Richard Conry

2002 Star Tribune
"This is really a stunning revelation," said U.S. Rep. James Oberstar. "It goes to the question of his fitness to fly."

Oberstar, one of the most influential members of Congress on aviation safety issues, said that he spoke with the chairwoman of the NTSB Thursday and that there was no mention of Conry's criminal background. He said he assumed he would have been told about Conry's record if the NTSB had been aware of it.

Jim Farrell, a Wellstone campaign spokesman, said he did not think Wellstone knew of Conry's felony conviction. When told that the owner of Executive Aviation, which operated the plane Wellstone flew on, said he didn't know about the criminal record, Farrell said, "Oh my."

Jeff Blodgett, Wellstone's campaign chairman, said late Thursday that he did not know about Conry's conviction. "Everything we've heard about the pilot is that he was a very experienced, certified pilot," he added.

Conry, 55, did not disclose on his job application that he was a convicted felon, said Mary Milla, a spokesperson for Executive Aviation on Thursday. Conry had flown for the Eden Prairie-based company since April 2001. Milla said that the application asks whether an applicant has been convicted of a felony in the past five years and that Conry answered 'no.' Conry was convicted in 1990 on 14 counts of mail fraud.

Told that Conry did not disclose the 1990 conviction, Oberstar said: "It's more than an act of omission, it's a deliberate act of deception. I can't imagine a commercial airline company hiring a pilot with a known felony record. It goes to trust a company would have in their pilot."

However, two Twin Cities attorneys familiar with aviation law said they knew of no regulation that would require revocation of a pilot's license because of a criminal conviction -- unless it involved drugs or drunken driving.

Time in prison camp

The conviction centered on a home construction and financing scheme that resulted in subcontractors not being paid for their work, attorneys involved in the case said.

Conry was sentenced to two years in Yankton Federal Prison Camp in Yankton, S.D. He was imprisoned in June 1990 and just over a year later was placed in a community corrections program in Minneapolis, records show. He was released in late 1991, a prison spokesperson said. Conry was placed on probation for five years as part of his sentence.

Court records show that Conry was ordered to pay more than $200,000 in restitution and that he made monthly payments of $50 through at least November 1996.

Paul Engh, Conry's attorney, said that Conry was a "fully licensed pilot" at the time of his conviction but that he didn't know whether Conry was employed as a pilot.

Records from an employment verification company used by American Airlines show that Conry was hired as a pilot trainee by American Eagle Airlines, a commuter airline affiliated with American, in November 1989. He got the job just weeks after he was charged in a federal court indictment in Minneapolis. Conry left American Eagle a week before he was sentenced in April 1990 by then-U.S. District Judge Diana Murphy.

Home construction

Before his brief career with American Eagle, Conry was president and chief executive of a company called Lake Minnetonka Homes Inc. The company built several hundred houses from 1972 to 1988, mostly in the western Twin Cities suburbs. Sales exceeded $22 million, Conry said in one court document.

His problems started to mount in the mid-to late-1980s, records show. Atlas Pile Driving Co. and Olson Concrete Co., two subcontractors, sued Conry, Lake Minnetonka Homes Inc. and DiCon Financial Co., a limited partnership, in 1985.

In a civil racketeering suit, the two subcontractors alleged that Conry, a business partner and the companies they formed schemed to defraud them. The case wended through court for several years. Atlas won a judgment and attorney's fees totaling $101,572; Olson's judgment and fees totaled $103,334, records show. Conry and his companies lost their appeal in 1989.

Bud Stannard, owner of Atlas, said Thursday that Conry owed him more than $150,000 at the time of his death. He said he may sue Conry's estate to recover the money.

Just as Conry's civil suit was ending, he was charged criminally with mail fraud in federal court.

About a year after Conry was released in November 1991, he applied to be a licensed practical nurse in Minnesota. He disclosed his felony conviction on his application, said Shirley Brekken, executive director of the Minnesota Board on Nursing. He became a registered nurse in 1994 and disclosed the conviction on that license application as well.

-- Paul McEnroe is at pmcenroe@startribune.com and can be reached at 612-673-1745 and Dan Browning is at dbrowning@startribune.com and can be reached at 612-673-4493.

-- Staff writers Pat Doyle, Glenn Howatt, Larry Oakes, Mike Kaszuba and Paul Gustafson contributed to this report.



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