FLYING BUT NOT HIGH: Skip Williams' Injustice
Skip Williams is probably an innocent man, even though he is just beginning a 15 year sentence for transporting cannabis aboard a rented plane. His release date is 04/22/2019. An honest statement from his passenger, who owned the marijuana and whose release date for an unrelated marijuana conviction is 8 years earlier than Skip's [09/18/2011], should be all it takes to set Skip free. Oh, another injustice: Skip lives at Gulf CI, one of the camps notorious for errant guards, while the actual guilty party lives at Baker, not such a bad place as Florida prisons go. Kay Lee
SKIP'S STORY
As a child my dream was to become a pilot. I have always wanted to fly. Money and time prevented me from achieving my dream until the spring of 1984 when I learned of an ultra-light airplane being sold in my area. No License necessary. I learned how to fly and for a while I flew the beaches every day for years. It seemed that everybody had seen me or knew who I was.
Circumstances later prevented me from flying and I became very involved in sky diving and started jumping most of the air shows, restaurants and bar openings or at ‘Demos.’ I have been on the front page of several newspaper and the TV as many as four times in one year.
Some time in 1998 I had enough time and money to start taking flying lessons. I overcame some medical issues and received my 3rd class medical certificate (to fly with Diabetes).
About 6 months later the flight school, Tradewinds International needed money to rebuild an airplane engine and asked me if I was interested in becoming a third owner. I was spending a lot of money flying and the partnership allowed me to get my license free and use the planes for just the cost of fuel. The one of the partners died making me a half owner. (Author makes note that there could be additional stories to add in this period)
During my flying career I would fly weekends and sometimes during the week. When I went for my written test I received a perfect score. My partner said he had only seen that good of a score once before. And I completed the 2.5 hour test in 55 minutes. I passed the test and became a pilot.
At one time or another I had flown to almost every airport in Florida of any interest. I was beginning to get bored. I started asking friends if there was anyplace they wanted to fly to for a day or weekend trip. I flew people to Crystal River, Panama City, West Palm, the Bahamas, and many times to Key West only to name a few places. I especially flew some of my employees around as a reward for good services, to places like over Lake Okeechobee, Jupiter Light house, and River Ranch and others.
Brian Hagen worked for me on and off for approximately 10 years as a sub contractor and in the beginning as an hourly employee. He had flown with me before and knew how I operated. He knew that every time I wanted to get a new ‘Type Rating’ or get some specialized time in a different aircraft or airspace I would take a plane for approximately 20 hours of flying time and go somewhere very challenging.
My partner didn't worry too much because he said I "didn't do stupid or crazy things." He meant that I handled emergency situations better then most. And that was because all of my ultra-light experience. Like landing on highways and beaches because of engine or mechanical problems (Author makes reference to other stories which could be given containing these situations). I even got him out of a bad storm when flying to West Palm. Radio ignored us because they had to get the many other larger aircraft on the ground in a hurry; another interesting story.
In conversation, Brian Hagan finds out that I’m looking to get a new type Rating for flying a complex, high performance, Piper PA-28. After some lengthy discussions Hagen suggested that it would be fun to fly to Texas to visit his father and renew his Texas License which was about to expire. He volunteered to pay $500 towards the cost of the fuel. Sounded good to me. I even looked up a skydiving facility we could land at and while I was Jumping Hagan could visit his friends and family. I set up the plane, rental car, and flight plan to coincide with Brian Hagan’s drivers License.
The plane was rented for four days. Brian Hagen was not ready to leave on Friday so we left on Saturday morning. I was not happy bout the delay. I stopped at Crystal River so we could get a fresh start on Sunday and make the trip in a day.
On Sunday Morning I was at the plane just before sunup and we were fogged in until about 10:00 AM - now we're really behind. I stopped in Paterson Louisiana for fuel and filed a flight plan that took me outside the continental united states. In other words outside the A. D. I. Z. (Air Defense Identification Zone).
All this happened approx. 2 months after 9/11, everything was in a heightened state of security.
From Louisiana I flew to Cameron Co. Airport in Brownsville Texas. We got in late and missed the guys at the drop zone I was supposed to meet. The van was still waiting for me and Brian Hagan drove us through the security gate and to an Econolodge, He knew the area very well.
On Monday morning Hagan made a few phone calls and took the Van to get his drivers license renewed. I went next door to Chilies for lunch and a couple of beers. When I returned to the room I waited for Hagan to return. A short time later he arrived and showed me his License. All this time he never gave me a reason to question his motives.
I took the van for a few hours did some shopping and stopped at ‘Jack in the box’ for a taco. Now being Monday and the plane due back Tuesday, we would have to leave very soon to be back Tuesday or Wednesday. So we went back to the airport to meet the guys who I had become friendly with over the phone. They showed me around and filled the plane and I paid my bill and said good bye. Hagan drove us back to the Econolodge.
A little later Hagan told me he had some friends coming over. I told him I’d prefer to go over to the lounge and watch TV and have a beer. As I was returning to the room Hagan’s friends were leaving and he asked me if he could use the van and take his girl friend to dinner. I agreed, and here is what must have happened.
Hagan took the van and his girl friend and probably went to dinner. Then they must have driven to where the Marijuana was, and since Hagan knew the security gate code, drove to the airplane and put the contraband in the back of the plane, in the cargo compartment.
Hagan returned to the room at around 2 AM. I knew nothing of the drug ‘culture’ and all that followed became a very bad learning experience. They [the packages of marijuana] were apparently vacuum sealed and put in the cargo compartment in duffle bags buried under the plane tarp and other gear. Hagan knew I never use the cargo compartment, preferring to keep my gear up with me and Hagan kept his gear in the rear compartment.
On Tuesday Morning we arrived at the plane at sun up to get a good start home, but were fogged in until 8 AM. So I went around and checked the plane for damage and its working order, and had Hagan put the cooler and gear away, while I was seeing to the plane. Its not rocket science. It doesn’t need to be supervised.
I flew directly to Paterson Airport in Louisiana and refueled. At Patterson I filed out a flight plan that was to state that I would be flying outside the continental USA (the shortest distance between two places is of course a straight line). The Plan is referred to as a D. V. F. R. Plan. DeRitter Radio only heard V.F.R flight plan. This is where all my Problems began.
Coming out of Louisiana I ran into low clouds which were causing me trouble and forced me to fly lower. Flying lower it made it difficult to contact New Orleans International Airport. They told me to contact them when I had gained more altitude.
Once I had raised my altitude and had found blue skies, the New Orleans Airport was out of range, I tried to contact other airports for help, but no luck.
Still trying to contact anybody, 2 F-16’s pull up next to me and try to get me to talk to them over the radio. Indicating that I am having radio problems I finally try to call an emergency radio at 121.5 and heard a male voice asking about my problem. I explained my problem and was told to contact Tendyl Air Force Base, where a very nice female air traffic controller already knew where the mistake was made and told me to make sure I closed out my flight plan when I landed. All of this concern was because I was flying straight at a nuclear power plant 2 months after 9/11.
Two hours from my intended destination the F-16’s left me out in the middle of the gulf. When I landed at Crystal Rivers, the S.W.A.T. team and the patrol cars surrounded me and ordered me and Hagan out of the plane and handcuffed us both. After I explained what had happened I was released and was about to go, one of the officers asked if they could search the plane. Without any hesitation I said "Sure, go ahead." Not knowing the contraband was in the plane.
It was impossible to reach the cargo area until all of my baggage was removed from the rear passenger seat. Finally the Sheriff got to the rear compartment and after removing almost everything in the Plane, found the bags with the marijuana in them.
After a very lengthy process Hagan and I were arrested and transported to citrus Co. jail. My bond was $250,000. I called my mother and she put up $25,000 the next morning to get me out.
Next I needed a Lawyer. After talking to a couple of attorneys I decided to let Juan Torres, my sky diving buddy and supposedly one of the best criminal attorneys in the area, take my case. I figured a friend wouldn’t let me down. He told me he normally charged $35,000, but for me he would only charge me $25,000. Oh boy, what a deal.
It took the state 2 and a quarter years to build a circumstantial case against me. They tried fingerprints, DNA on a pair of socks found in the bags, no match. They could never prove that the contraband belonged to me. Brian Hagan even refused to testify against me and was found in contempt of court and took 5 mos. and 29 days of an extra sentence.
Hagan, by the way, was never charged with anything related to this case. An officer told me and my attorney that they knew he would be tried for something else later and were going to concentrate their effort on me. [Seems Hagan had a history of arrests for marijuana crimes]
Hagan sat in jail for 40 days until they had to release him cause no charges had been filed. Two weeks later he was caught with 45 Lbs of Marijuana in a friend's trunk. I found out about it when a friend told me that Hagan and I were on the front pages of the Port St. Lucie Tribune under a title of "Try, Try, Again." Hagan is now serving a 10 year sentence somewhere in north Florida. Someone needs to advise Hagan that it would be morally better to confess his Sole involvement in this crime.
OK, back to Lawyer Torres and his incompetence. Juan said his strategy was to delay the case so that some of the key witnesses would be gone or no longer available. He also hoped that he could capitalize on time blurring some of the events or memories. That didn’t work. What all this time did allow was time for the prosecution to build a very strong circumstantial case against me. Juan was not prepared. I can still see Juan behind his desk saying, how can the state prove, knowledge, dominion and control, constructive possession, ect, ect He never thought he would have to prove to a jury that I didn't know the contraband was there. In fact, just before the trial he asked me if I thought we needed witnesses. I said yes and had to put together a list of character witnesses and one secretary that saw me leave Fort Pierce, Florida on the plane, not much of a crew.
The state however had an excess of 15 witnesses, but Juan said they probably wouldn't call all of them. The State did call all of them and painted a verbal picture that "suggested" I should have known the contraband was on the plane. The state called a witness from the sheriff's Dept. who is a pilot who stated all pilots load their own baggage because they must know the weight and balance of the plane. Juan didn't know to ask the pilot if a four person air craft with 3000 lbs cargo capacity really needed to worry about checking weight and balance when there were only 2 passengers with minimum baggage. The pilot inferred that 65 lbs of extra weight might influence the flight characteristics of the plane. Juan didn't challenge that and apparently the jury bought it.
I could write a book about all of the arguments presented to the jury by ‘expert’ witnesses that Juan was not prepared to challenge. The best one, or I should say the best lie was was during the very last statement during rebuttal. The last sentences spoken to the jury went something like: "The defense wants us to believe that these bags only belong to Mr. Hagan who does not sky dive and we have established that Mr. Williams does skydive and in sky diving they use goggles."
The state attorney went over to the bags and pulled a little bottle that had ‘mask defogger’ printed on it and thrust it in front of the jury and his last statement was: "If goggles are used in sky diving why would Hagan need mask defogger (Gasp)."
I hit Juan in the side with my elbow and said, "aren’t you going to object?" He said he can’t because the bags had already been entered into evidence. So no objection was made to the fact that mask defogger is not used in skydiving (my attorney was a sky diver), mask defogger is used in scuba diving.
It only took 2 hours to return a verdict of guilty after a judge said, "If there is any doubt, even the smallest doubt, you must find Mr. Williams not guilty." Six retired, old conservative jurors didn’t have any trouble convicting me of a crime that Juan didn’t prove I didn’t commit. The whole trial was full of half truths and distortions and lies. I was the biggest thing that happened in Citrus Co. I was on the front page of the Tampa Newspaper as a terrorist, I was on CNN that day also. Judge Howard made an example of me, and Buxman and Howard railroaded me into prison.
Kaylee - There are a lot more details about this case that my appeal lawyers will bring out and hopefully set me free. Thanks for the help and write me with any Questions you might have. Also, as you know Diana is always a phone call away.
Thanks again,
Skip
Vernon S. Williams
K53769
GULF C.I. Annex- West Unit
699 Ike Steele Road
Wewahitchka, Florida 32465-0010
