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Jurors deliberated for four days following the month-long trial in U.S. District Court in Newark before finding Michael Brassington, 37, and Paul Brassington, 31, both of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla, guilty of some of the offenses while acquitting them of some lesser charges.
Although Platinum Jet didn’t have the necessary licenses, charter flights zipped in and out of Teterboro Airport — until a fateful day in February 2005, when a company jet carrying a group of investment bankers failed to get off the ground, skidded across Route 46 and smashed into a furniture warehouse on the other side, injuring a pilot, a passenger and two people on the ground.
By taking an “anything goes” attitude, those charged routinely violated guidelines designed to prevent such crashes, federal authorities said.
The most dangerous practice of all, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott McBride, who prosecuted the case, was “tankering,” an illegal way of cutting costs by taking advantage of less expensive fuel contracts, then overfueling the tanks. This contributed to the Teterboro crash by shifting the aircraft’s center of gravity too far forward, McBride said.
Federal jurors also convicted Michael Brassington of various counts of lying on FAA-required paperwork to hide the fact that ill-qualified or unrested pilots were at the controls on some of the flights. He also lied on a National Transportation Safety Board accident and endangered safety by putting those planes in the air, the jury found.
A co-pilot for the now-defunct company had already admitted that he doctored safety and compliance records to conceal the illegal charter flights. That gave the government even more ammunition than it already had against the brothers.
Joining him were others who pleaded guilty for their roles in the scam — including another co-founder, Andre Budhan — and agreed to testify in exchange for leniency.
U.S. States District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh indefinitely postponed those sentencings until after the trial.
Budhan admitted scheming to defraud charter customers and the FAA, launching roughly 100 illegal flights that netted more than $1 million.
Platinum Jet customers didn’t know the group had schemed to defraud them and the Federal Aviation Administration, co-pilot Francis Vieira, 60, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., testified.
Vieira admitted that he altered safety records for the twinjet that crashed at Teterboro by changing the weight and center of gravity listings — more than two dozen times. He also hid the fact that the captain wasn’t fit to fly under federal regulations, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott B. McBride, the lead prosecutor in the case.
Pulling the strings, the government said, were the Brassington brothers.
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman credited special agents of the Department of Transportation for a massive investigation that led to the pleas.
“A pattern of fraud and deception is not a business plan,” Fishman said, accusing the Brassingtons of putting “the pursuit of profits over public safety.”
“Today’s verdict confirms that there are consequences when you break the law to boost your bottom line,” he said.
In addition to the criminal charges, the charter operator also has been fined more than $1.86 million.
Cavanaugh scheduled sentencings for March 17.
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