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Appeals court frees former Medford man No date set for decision in military aircraft scam By CHRIS BRISTOL A former Medford man who was convicted of scamming surplus military aircraft from the federal government has been freed from prison early pending the outcome of his appeal. Roy D. Reagan, an aviation broker whose ties to the CIA lent the case an air of political intrigue, had served 20 months of his 30-month sentence when a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month ordered his immediate release. Reagan's attorney, appeals specialist Marcia Shein of Atlanta, described the ruling as unusual and promising. "They just flat out released him," she said Monday. "The decision gives us an indication that they're going to overturn the conviction." Reagan and a high-ranking U.S. Forest Service official, now-retired assistant aviation director Fred Fuchs, were convicted by an federal jury in Arizona in 1997 of conspiring to steal 22 surplus Air Force C-130A transports and six Navy P-3A submarine attack planes. The tangled tale dated back to 1989, when the Forest Service handed over the planes to five private firefighting contractors as part of a program that permitted the government to trade surplus military aircraft for "historic" planes that could be given to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. A former Air Force tanker pilot, Reagan once worked for two of the contractors. He also worked briefly for Central Point-based Erickson Air-Crane, which disavowed any role in the case and was never accused of any wrongdoing. Historically, the Air Force has provided used military aircraft to the Forest Service, which uses them to fight fires. To save costs, the Forest Service contracts out air support. The exchange program came under scrutiny in 1991 when two of the planes turned up hauling cargo in Kuwait after the Gulf War. An audit concluded the aging C-119s the government got in trade were worthless junk. Federal prosecutors argued the exchange program was more than bad horse-trading. They said Reagan resold some of the planes and made more than $1 million on the deals. Many of the planes were scavenged for parts or sold, and the government has been trying to retrieve some of them ever since. One of the contractors leased aircraft to a Central American airline that federal prosecutors identified as a front for drug traffickers. But the defendants claimed they were made scapegoats over a bureaucratic misunderstanding. None of the contractors or their business partners were prosecuted. Reagan, 60, now makes his home in Phoenix, Ariz. In its 2-1 decision, issued Feb. 17, the appeals panel did not explain its reason for releasing Reagan. A dissent written by Justice Susan Graber of Portland indicated the decision hinged on Reagan's claim of heart problems. Shein said her client is "not doing well" physically and she argued that it was almost unprecedented for somebody convicted of a nonviolent crime to go to prison before the appeal could be heard. "There's no reason for a person with a two-year sentence to sit in jail pending the outcome of an appeal," she said. Fuchs was released from prison in November after serving a two-year sentence and has returned to his retirement home near Albuquerque, N.M. He is also appealing. The appeals court has not indicated when it will issue a ruling. Lead prosecutor Claire Mann, an assistant U.S. attorney in Tucson, had no comment. She referred inquiries to the Department of Justice appellate division in Washington, D.C. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA