Ciresi's law firm looking into Wellstone plane crash Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe Star Tribune
Published Nov. 14, 2002 SUIT14
The lawyers who successfully handled Minnesota's landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry have begun investigating the plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone.
Sam Kaplan, legal adviser to Mark and David Wellstone, confirmed Wednesday that Mike Ciresi and Roberta Walburn have been retained by the Wellstone family to consider possible legal action in connection with the Oct. 25 charter airplane crash in Eveleth that also killed wife Sheila Wellstone, daughter Marcia Markuson, a DFL Party official, two Wellstone campaign workers and the plane's two pilots.
In an unrelated development late Wednesday, the charter company, Executive Aviation of Eden Prairie, disclosed that in 1999 it fired an employee who fabricated a pilot's license for himself.
The disclosure is the second time since the crash that pilot hiring at the firm has been an issue.
Ciresi and Walburn teamed up on litigation that resulted in the state's $6.1 billion tobacco settlement. Previously, Walburn had worked for Wellstone in Washington, D.C., for one year as a legislative assistant.
"I think we have selected not only the best firm, but also the best friends," Kaplan said. He said Ciresi, Walburn and others at the Minneapolis-firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi are "extraordinary friends" of the family and also will represent Todd Markuson, whose wife, Marcia, died in the crash.
Ciresi said his firm is looking into the facts surrounding the crash and will make a decision at some point on what action to take. "I'm not going to comment any further than that," Ciresi said.
So far no suits have been filed in connection with the crash, which is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. The probable cause of the crash probably won't be determined for months.
The twin-turboprop Beechcraft King Air A100 departed from the St. Paul Downtown Airport en route to Eveleth. With its landing gear down and wing flaps extended for landing, the plane crashed at a steep angle into marshy terrain about two miles southeast of the Eveleth-Virginia airport, leaving no survivors, the Safety Board has said.
Michael Lindberg, an attorney for Executive Aviation, which is owned by Roger and Shirley Wikner, said: "In a well-handled wrongful-death claim, the lawsuit wouldn't be filed until the [accident] investigation is complete."
Lindberg, of the Twin Cities firm of Johnson & Lindberg, said he was hired to represent Executive Aviation by its insurance carrier, Global Aerospace/Associated Aviation Underwriters of London.
Executive Aviation is believed to be covered by a $25 million insurance policy. Lindberg declined to comment on the policy.
Ciresi has a formidable reputation as a litigator. The Minnesota tobacco settlement in 1998 resulted in restrictions on tobacco companies and created a repository of 33 million tobacco industry documents for study by others.
Ciresi began building his name as a legal top gun in the 1980s, when he won a $38 million settlement against the maker of the Dalkon Shield intrauterine contraceptive and a $500 million settlement over the Union Carbide chemical disaster in Bhopal, India. In 2000, Ciresi ran for the DFL endorsement for U.S. Senate, losing to Sen. Mark Dayton.
Ciresi's firm already has been involved in one suit against Executive Aviation. That was on behalf of a Northwest Airlines mechanic who survived the crash in Colorado in 1997 of an Executive Aviation charter flight. It killed the pilot and another passenger who also was a Northwest mechanic.
Meanwhile, Executive Aviation said late Wednesday that it fired an employee in late 1999 for fabricating a pilot's license for himself.
The employee, Bryan T. Maloney, was trained to fly a jet for Executive Aviation and may have flown passengers between "mid-to late November 1999 and mid-December" of that year before he was fired. Dave Mona, a spokesman for Executive Aviation, said the company doesn't know for sure whether Maloney flew passengers, because Maloney's flight records are missing.
Mona said the company doesn't know what happened to Maloney after his dismissal or whether he was penalized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or law enforcement agencies. He said the company is still looking for Maloney because he owes the company $2,500.
Efforts to contact Maloney for comment Wednesday night were unsuccessful. The FAA's pilot registry lists one entry for a Bryan T. Maloney but has no address. The listing says Maloney holds a private pilot's license. To fly passengers for hire, a commercial pilot's license is required.
Mona said that before it was discovered that Maloney didn't have the proper credentials to fly as a commercial pilot, he was trained as a Beechcraft jet copilot for Executive Aviation. The spokesman said Maloney passed his training course and passed an FAA proficiency check in mid-to late November 1999. He was fired in mid-December, Mona said.
"He falsified his records," said Dave Willman, a former FAA inspector who has been working at Executive Aviation for several years as an aviation consultant. "We believed he was a pilot, [but] he had doctored his certificate."
Before his pilot training at Executive Aviation, Maloney parked and refueled airplanes as a ground worker, Willman and Mona said.
Executive Aviation's hiring practices could be scrutinized by lawyers investigating the Wellstone crash.
The flying background of Richard Conry, the captain of the Wellstone flight, has been called into question. On Sunday, the Star Tribune reported that Conry had told Executive Aviation he had 400 to 500 hours of experience flying as a copilot for American Eagle, a major commuter carrier.
But an aviation official with knowledge of Conry's history at American Eagle said Conry was only a trainee and never flew passengers for the airline. An American Eagle employment record obtained by the newspaper showed that Conry resigned after only four months on the payroll.
He left the commuter airline in April 1990 because he was sentenced to a federal prison camp. He had been convicted on felony mail fraud charges related to his home construction busines.
A number of things are interesting here.....
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