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Michael Brassington was sentenced in a packed Federal
courtroom in Newark, New Jersey last week for the
spectacular crash of one of his company’s jets at Teterboro
Airport outside New York City in early February 2005.
His sentencing came
more than a year-and-a-half after being convicted of
multiple felonies in the crash and its aftermath, including
recklessly endangering the lives of passengers
who included two
ex-Presidents as well as numerous celebrities, everyone from Luciano
Pavarotti to Keith Richards, and from Burt Reynolds to Snoop
Doggie Dogg.
Brassington’s Platinum Jet, an aviation charter company
operating out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was illegally
operating a Bombardier Challenger 600 luxury jet which
failed to take off before hurtling past the end of a runway
at 200 miles an hour, plowing through an airport perimeter
fence and then plunging across a six-lane highway during the
height of morning rush hour.
The 10-ton plane’s wings swept like a scythe across the tops
of cars on the highway, nearly decapitating, in an
instant of never-to-be-forgotten panic and stunned
disbelief,
several drivers and passengers on their way to work.
One suffered permanent brain damage; a number
received crippling injuries.
The jet finally
embedded itself in a fireball inside a clothing warehouse
across the street, where there were numerous burn victims.
Yet
not until three years later, right after the Bush Administration
left office, was Brassington charged.
His remarkable “good luck” with U.S. authorities would hold
during his sentencing. Found guilty of multiple felony counts, it
garnered him a feather-light sentence.
As the smoke
clears, questions remain. Had Brassington, or his lawyers,
achieved this extremely favorable outcome on their own? Had
some powerful organization arranged matters for him?
Just who is Michael Francis Brassington,
anyway?
The one that was certain was this:
When later that
morning Michael Francis Brassington walked out of the
Federal Courthouse in Newark, he had successfully dodged
another bullet.
"An officer and a gentleman"

After a five-week
trial, a jury found Brassington guilty of conspiracy, seven
counts of lying to federal investigators, and—in the most
serious count, with a sentence of up to 20 years in
prison—endangering the safety of an aircraft and its
passengers.
A half-dozen managers and
employees of Platinum Jet, also been
charged with crimes, had already copped pleas.
For just one of the seven
felony counts of which he was convicted, the Federal
sentencing guideline is 20 years.
In a
sentencing memo
, Asst. U.S. Atty Scott
McBride asked the judge to sentence Brassington to 360
months, 30 years, in prison.
But U.S. District
Judge Dennis M Cavanaugh said he did not believe regulatory
violations caused the plane to crash, stating “I’m just not
satisfied from the evidence I heard that the conduct alleged
caused the plane to crash.”
Brassington’s
transgressions should more properly have been handled
administratively, by the FAA, he said, naming an agency some
feel has been almost as effective at regulating aviation as
the SEC was at regulating Wall Street before the recent
economic crash.
Judge Cavanaugh gave Brassington a sentence that was slightly less than ten percent of the time
asked for by the U.S. Attorney.
Convicted of being responsible for a plane crash which left
at least a half-dozen people with permanent injuries,
including irreversible brain damage, he sentenced Brassington
to 30 months in Federal prison.
On hand in the
courtroom for the good news were Brassington’s mother,
father, two sisters, and assorted
well-wishers, whose number were included a former NYPD
detective-turned-bodyguard as well as an official from the FAA’s Miami
office who testified on his behalf.
But conspicuously
absent from the proceedings—despite Brassington's intriguing
ties to well-known
individuals—was the faintest hint that Brassington, a short, squat,
swarthy pilot with big ears, had
been operating on anyone's behalf but his own.
"Uncle Peter, Cousin Winston, The Russian
Mob, & the CIA"

The record of
Brassington's trial contains oddities seldom seen in
countries with no tradition of steel drums or midnight
coups.
Three days before its
scheduled start, to cite one example,
his
attorney
filed a pre-trial
motion, beseeching Federal Judge Dennis Cavanaugh to exclude
testimony mentioning Brassington in connection with
terrorism, or New York's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Newspapers in Guyana headlined his
sentencing, and offered revealing commentary on his
background. Brassington was known to move in fast
company. "These
guys (Brassington and his brother Paul, a co-defendant)
are the nephews of Peter D'Aguiar," wrote one observer in
Guyana.
"Their aunt was
Peter D'Aguiar's wife. They come from a powerful old English
Guyanese Family that used to be very strong supporters of
the United Force Party. But in recent years they seem to
have joined forces with (current President of Guyana)
Jagdeo."
"Uncle Peter," it was learned, controlled one of three
major political parties in Guyana. Dear Uncle Pete was
no stranger to another Brassington Uncle: Uncle Sam, when America's CIA
called on him for assistance
with the CIA-sponsored 1968 coup in Guyana.
Uncle Sam
and Uncle Vayna cavorting together in the Caribbean
Then, too,
there's Cousin Winston.
"The Brassingtons
are also cousins of Winston Brassington, (Guyana President) Jagdeo collector
and lover," another commentator in Guyana wrote.
"Cousin
Winston" is,
or was, Guyana's Minister for Privatisation, one of the most
lucrative jobs in the world, to cite the Russian example,
which may hold special meaning here.
Winston Brassington cut a $1 billion deal
to sell Guyana's bauxite resources to the biggest Russian
Mobster in the world, Oleg Deripaska.
Deripaska was the "last
man standing" in what Russians call "The Aluminum Wars"
during the 1990's, fought for control of one of Russia's key
industries.
His company, RUSAL, is
today the world's largest aluminum producer.
"An officer and a gentleman"

A letter-writing campaign attesting to
Brassington's character may possibly have swayed the judge.
While many of the letters attempted
to paint him as "an officer and a gentleman,"the Asst.
U.S. Atty pointed out in court, Brassington was in fact
a deserter from the
Guyana Defense Forces.
Still,
many of
the letters offer clues to the forces aligned in
Brassington's favor.
“The Brassington
family
is
well known in Guyana, a former British colony," wrote
one long-time family friend. "Michael Brassington’s
great-grandfather came from Britain and established sugar
plantations & estates throughout Guyana. The family is
well-known
for their wealth and power…”
One
letter recommending Brassington for having a sterling character came from the
brother of the former Premier of the Turks and Caicos
Islands, Michael Misick.
Misick is currently in prison for
massive theft from his tiny island government's
already-thin revenue stream. Worth $40,000
when he took office, Misick several years later told new wife Lisa
Raye Misick, a Hollywood starlet, that he was now worth $120
million.
While he was accumulating
his stash, Misick's personal pilot was Michael Brassington.
Misick's corruption was so
massive and historic, even for the Caribbean, that for the first time in the history of the
British Empire, the Crown took back a possession (the Turks
& Caicos) that had already been given independence.
With an
utter lack of self-awareness, Misick's brother Peter wrote: “I am
extensively involved in the real estate industry in the
Turks & Caicos Islands... Michael is a gentleman and a class
act.”
Doubtless just like his
brother the felon.
British
High Commissioner "deeply impressed by excellent manners"

Yet other letters provide new details of
Brassington's life in Guyana: His father is an
extremely wealthy CEO,
one states, who at one time ran Barclay's Bank in
the Caribbean. As a boy, Michael had been driven to and from
school in a chauffeur driven car. Despite that, he was a
humble unassuming sort.
The Honorable David
P. Small, the former British High Commissioner in British
Guyana, had nice things to say about Brassington's entire
family.
“I became well-acquainted
with (the Brassington family) while I was British High
Commissioner heading our diplomatic mission in Georgetown
Guyana,” wrote Mr. Small.
He had, he stated, been “deeply impressed by
their excellent manners.”
Learning to trust people out in the
"field"
He
was a “man of God,” said one letter. He was “someone you
can count on.”
Regrettably, Chase
Bank had cancelled his parent’s accounts, we learn from
another letter, owing to what the
writer called: “Michael’s long-standing battles with the
Federal Government.”
Victor Reynosa, a
former NYPD detective-turned-bodyguard, flew with
Brassington regularly while he was protecting someone he
would describe only as “ a client.” After years in law
enforcement and as a private security official, Reynosa
found it very hard, he wrote, to trust people out in the
“field.”
Brassington,
however, made it “very easy.”
Michael's long-standing battles with
the Federal Government aside, Randy Williams,
the FAA’s Aviation Safety Inspector in Miami, wrote to say
he "still couldn’t see where his actions stepped
out of the realm of administrative remedy to leap into that
of the criminal."
After all, hadn't Brassington, like a gentleman, Williams
continued, voluntarily cooperated with the U.S. government's
investigation? Williams assays no
opinion for why this voluntary cooperation had somehow resulted in six
felony convictions for lying to investigators.
A DEA "look-out." Friends in high places. And a milk run for
Wally.

Brassington's
trial and sentencing is only the latest
chapter in a bizarre and brazen decade-long crime spree in
the sky. Interested readers can find it chronicled in the dozen
or stories collected here,
called
The Brassington Files.
In just the past three years,
Brassington has been the target of investigations by the
governments of the U.S., the Turks & Caicos, and his native
Guyana. He came through it as the
aviation world's equivalent of "The Teflon Don."
Until his conviction in
Newark, he'd escaped unscathed every time. Despite his
already-mentioned history as a deserter from the Guyana
Defense Forces, which he left, perhaps understandably, for a better paying job working for
a man who had soon become one of
the DEA's Top Ten Fugitives from Justice, Brassington was
somehow able to steer the government of Guyana
into the purchase of several aging and unreasonably
expensive U.S. helicopters, much to the outrage of some in
Guyana.
Brassington
achieved a modest level of infamy shortly after the
9/11 attack. He had been the co-pilot of the
Lear jet (N351WB) of Wally Hilliard, owner of
the flight school where Mohamed Atta was then just beginning to
learn to fly,
when it
was surrounded by DEA agents on a runway of Orlando
Executive Airport.
The DEA Agents, toting submachine
guns,
found
43 lbs of heroin
onboard the plane. Such
an impressive amount is known in the drug trade as
"heavy weight." The date was July
22, 2000.
It was, said the
local Orlando Sentinel, "the biggest bust of its kind in
Central Florida history."
It was also the
biggest drug bust in history that no one has heard about
since.
During the trial
for drug trafficking of two Venezuelans who'd chartered the
Lear, testimony revealed that the plane had been
making weekly flights to Venezuela and back, terminating
each time at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, before it was
busted.
The plane was flying what's known as a "milk run."
Yet, curiously,
Brassington's name appears nowhere in the
DEA affidavit filed with the Court relating
the circumstances of the bust. Nor can it be found in
other court documents.
Still, aviation sources
insisted Brassington had nonetheless been a pilot on the
plane.
"Grave threat, maybe. But, definitely
lots of juice."

Confirmation of
that fact came in
early 2004, when a chance encounter further illuminated
Michael Brassington's curious connections to powerful
people.
While returning to the U.S. from the Bahamas,
Brassington got
into a dust-up with a rookie U.S. Customs Agent.
James Sanders
was on duty, and in charge, although just a rookie, of
Customs Inspection on the late shift at Fort Lauderdale
International Airport when Brassington flew in one Tuesday night.
While checking his
luggage, Agent Sanders saw
Brassington’s DEA narcotics record in the computer, even as Brassington
was indignantly brandishing a letter in his face. The
letter,
signed by
Gloria Marshall, the head of the "Information Disclosure
Unit" of the "Mission Support Division" of the Dept. of
Homeland Security,
seemed designed
to smooth Brassington's entry into the U.S.
Rookie Customs Agent
Sanders didn’t take the hint.
“It was a strange
occurrence," he said later in an interview. "So I hesitated. I
said, wait a second. He has this official-looking letter
that says they're going to take care of his record...
But he still has an active record."
"Check him, check his passengers,
his plane, and all his known contacts."

"I felt like a deer in the
headlights," Sanders recalled.
"I didn’t know what
to do. But I had just enough presence of mind to call Special
Agent Norm Bright, listed as Brassington’s 'point of
contact.’”
“Point of contact” is
U.S. Customs jargon for an Agent who's been assigned particular
responsibility for someone whose movements are being
tracked.
“Bright was a local ICE
Agent and I guess he was tracking Brassington,” said
Sanders. “So I called him up, and I
told him about the letter. He said you can just disregard
the letter. He told me to ignore it."
"He described Mike
Brassington as a ‘grave threat to national security,' and
told me that I needed to check him, search him, and
search all his passengers.”
“And that's what I did,”
Sanders explains. “I searched the luggage of all his
passengers, and then I searched his plane. I didn't think of
him as a terrorist suspect. I just thought he was really
into drugs, and that I needed to check him really close. I
had no idea of the shit-storm I was about to ignite.”
Operation Blue Lightning

“Norm Bright also told me
to try to get a drug dog there. But the problem with that is
that on Tuesday nights at Fort Lauderdale International
Airport, there aren’t any drug dogs available.”
Shrugs Sanders, “Tuesday
night is the drug dogs night off."
Supervisors instructed him that Brassington's entries into
the U.S. were handled only by agents from a
still-unexplained U.S. Customs team called Operation Blue
Lightening.
“I was looking at
Brassington’s narcotics record on the computer,” says
Sanders, still incredulous at the memory, “when he handed me
a letter from Washington.”
Confused, Sanders
phoned a Supervisor at Immigrations & Customs Enforcement
(ICE) whose name appeared in Brassington’s file.
And that’s when ICE
Supervisor Norm Bright, instructed him, Sanders
states, that he should treat Brassington “as a grave threat to national
security.”
Brassington was involved in—or the subject of—a secretive
Miami-based U.S. Government operation, Sanders was told.
“Whenever Brassington entered the U.S. a special team from
Miami was supposed to come up,” Sanders said.
Brassington was supposed to be met by Agents from something
called “Operation Blue Lightning.”
“Operation Blue Lightning is some kind of joint task force,"
Sanders explained. "I found out later, from a chief
inspector on the team, that I wasn’t even supposed to
inspect him.”
The EDA (Elite
Deviants of America) Cartel
Following
his confrontation with Customs Agent Sanders, Brassington did something truly unusual.
Despite having
a “DEA look-out” for heroin
trafficking next to his name; despite flying a plane (N60S)
suspected of being used for money laundering; and despite
carrying a passenger, Anthony Cirillo, flagged as a suspect
in money laundering, he wrote a letter of complaint
to the U.S. Customs Department in Washington D.C.
He
addressed it to Jason Ahern, soon-to-be the Department's
Acting Supervisor, and apparently just "got lucky" again.
Ahern proved to be
a sympathetic ear.
Elements of the U.S. Government appear to have taken a
surprisingly keen interest in controversial Guyanese drug
pilot Michael Brassington during 2003 and 2004.
What happened to
U. S. Customs Agent James Sanders after his
encounter with
Guyanese drug pilot Michael Brassington
is the strongest possible argument for further investigation
into what, as they say in Texas, "might could be" a continuing criminal conspiracy involving the
corrupt elite of Guyana and
their American opposites:
It
cost him his job.
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