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Text File | 1996-06-20 | 19.5 KB | 425 lines

Path: news.demon.co.uk!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!usenet2.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!usenet1.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.ac.net!news.cais.net!nntp.primenet.com!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-3.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-fw-12.sprintlink.net!news.cc.sunysb.edu!usenet From: kathy.hutchinson@sunysb.edu Newsgroups: alt.paranet.ufo Subject: Re: UFO INVESTIGATOR ARRESTED ? Date: 20 Jun 1996 08:00:56 GMT Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook Lines: 411 Message-ID: <4qb0fo$eop@abel.cc.sunysb.edu> References: <4q79c5$gcp@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: rnixon@usa.wgate.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: as3-04.noc080.sunysb.edu X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.9d - NLS In <4q79c5$gcp@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, pleadian@aol.com (Pleadian) writes: >Does anyone know who the UFO investigator was that was arrested in New >York ? > >I heard someting about the person wanting to poison someonw with radium, >or something ? > John Ford is/was president of the Long Island UFO Network. Whether or not he was an "investigator" is debatable. Here then, posted without permission, are two articles from Reuter's news service (Yahoo) and two articles from Newsday (a Long Island newspaper - the ONLY L.I. newspaper, btw) about the developments last week: (sorry it's so long - re-formatting is a pain) ------------- Newsday Radium From Grumman? By Olivia Winslow and Liam Pleven. STAFF WRITERS; Ellen Yan and Barbara Chai contributed to this story. Prosecutors are investigating whether a Defense Department employee from Medford was the source of radium in what authorities said was a bizarre plot to slowly poison three Suffolk County politicians with radiation. Prosecutors are investigating whether Edward Zabo, 49, of 11 Forest Ave., provided the means for two other men to carry out a scheme to kill Suffolk County Republican Chairman John Powell, Suffolk Legis. Fred Towle (R-Shirley) and county Conservative Party Vice-Chairman Anthony Gazzola by smearing radium on their cars or injecting it in their food or toothpaste. Suffolk District Attorney James M. Catterson Jr. said that in taped conversations between John J. Ford, 47, a retired state court officer and the alleged mastermind, and Joseph Mazzachelli, 42, who served time on burglary convictions, Ford railed against the power and influence he felt the three targets wielded. Ford, who had been active in Conservative Party politics, and Mazzachelli are being held without bail on conspiracy to commit murder charges. Although Catterson said it was too early to tell how Zabo might have fit in with the conspiracy, he said Zabo potentially is one of the sources of radium, though it was still unclear. At Zabo's house, there were at least five lead pigs, storage containers that were tested for radioactive m aterial, Drew Biondo, Catterson's spokesman, said. One was found with radioactive substances. Zabo has been charged with weapons and explosives offenses. Zabo is charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly having a detonator cord and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly having unlicensed handguns. He also was charged with a violation of state labor laws for allegedly illegally possessing explosives without a license. He was held without bail yesterday during his arraignment in First District Court, Central Islip. Investigators are checking out the involvement of more people and may make one more arrest, Biondo said. Catterson said Zabo's name came up in conversations between Ford and Mazzachelli that authorities taped this week to gain information on the alleged murder plot. He was referred to in a conversation we monitored the other night as a person from whom grenades could be procured, Catterson said. I don't know whether that's a really good, accurate description. But anything these people tell me sometimes I think is rather inaccurate. They live in a different world from us, Catterson said at a news conference near Zabo's home. Ford is head of the Long Island UFO Network and has set about trying to prove the existence of space aliens. His whole thing was that UFOS were invading, said Joel Martin, who until 1994 hosted a radio and cable TV show on paranormal occurrences and had Ford on the show as a guest several times. Martin said Ford claimed the military was covering up UFO crashes on the East End. I stopped dealing with him because he was too far out there. Biondo said that Zabo and Ford may have known each other from the Long Island UFO Network. Police raided Zabo's house after he returned home from work Thursday. Authorities said the search turned up numerous weapons - as was the case when they searched Ford's Bellport home at 55 Sundial Lane - and the lead containers. Ford and Mazzachelli are accused of planning to expose the politicians to the radium in the hope they would contract an incurable disease and die. Experts said it would have been an inefficient way to kill, since it would take exposure over years to produce cancer, if ever. If it didn't work, prosecutors charged, Ford and Mazzachelli discussed using firearms. Zabo has been employed by the Department of Defense at Northrop-Grumman's Bethpage facility since 1973 as a quality assurance specialist in electronics, said Ann Jensis-Dale, a Defense Department spokeswoman. She declined to comment on whether radium is stored at the facility. Northrop-Grumman is licensed to have radium, but Dick Dunne, a company spokesman, declined to say if the company had any. Zabo is on probation for a driving while intoxicated conviction in March, authorities said. Meanwhile, more details have emerged about Ford's involvement and apparent disenchantment with a faction of the Conservative Party. While Republican Party Chairman Powell and Towle said they didn't know Ford personally, Gazzola said he was not surprised that his name turned up on Ford's alleged target s list. He's part of the lunatic fringe that comes out every few years that tries to control the Conservative Party, said Gazzola, who is also Brookhaven town's chief investigator of code violations. He said Ford's goal for years was to be chairman of the Conservative Party, a goal that Gazzola said he squelched. He was always a little bit too far off to the right and off the deep end. Everything was a conspiracy involving the CIA and FBI. -------------------------------------------- Newsday Radium Plot / 3 charged in plan to kill Suffolk GOP boss, others By Olivia Winslow and Liam Pleven. STAFF WRITERS; Steve Wick and Andrew Smith contributed to this story. A retired state court officer and a convicted felon have been arrested in an alleged plot to kill three Suffolk County politicians with radium that they planned to spread in their targets' cars or inject in their food or toothpaste, authorities said yesterday. Suffolk District Attorney James M. Catterson Jr. said at a news conference that the suspects, John Ford and Joseph Mazzachelli, hoped that exposing the politicians to the radioactive substance would lead them to contract an incurable disease that would lead to death. Police raided a second house around 6 p.m. last night, at 11 Forest Ave. in Medford, and arrested an alleged radium supplier Edward Zabo, 49, after he returned home from work, asking investigators, "What's going on?" One of the suspects arrested earlier told authorities about Zabo, a civilian Navy employee working at Grumman, a source said. "He's got radioactive stuff, not as much as at the other place," the source said. "He's got bomb-making material, gun powder, detonating caps . . ." Today, police plan to send bomb-sniffing dogs into the woods behind the house, the source said, because "some of the neighbors say they hear explosions in the woods once in a while." Canisters of radioactive material were found outside Zabo's house and in the basement, of ficials said. Experts said the radium probably would not have killed the men, but Catterson said the suspects had other weapons on hand as well. "If that [the radium] were not successful, other things were contemplated, including the use of firearms," Catterson said. He displayed a large cache of weapons he said authorities found at one suspect's home. Authorities said the politicians allegedly targeted for murder were Suffolk Republican Party chairman John Powell, Suffolk Legis. Fred Towle and Anthony Gazzola, Brookhaven Town's public safety director and Brookhaven Conservative Party chairman. None of the targeted victims knew the suspects, authorities said, and no reason was known why they would want to kill them. Powell said conversations between Ford and Mazzachelli that authorities taped Wednesday indicated that they were prepared to kill him, and if they had to, his children. Assistant District Attorney Martin Thompson, head of the rackets squad, said an informant in a weapons case alerted authorities to the alleged murder plot on Wednesday. Later that day, authorities taped the conversations during which they said they overheard Ford and Mazzachelli discuss the plot. The two were arrested Wednesday night. Towle said he first heard about the case when authorities called him yesterday morning to tell him about the arrests. He said he has asked police to inspect his car to see if it has been tampered with. "It's a real shocker. Bizarre is an understatement," Towle said, adding that his only knowledge of Ford came from newspaper articles he had read about UFO observers. "I wish I could say he and I had a fight," Towle added. "But I wouldn't know him from a hole in the wall." But Ford's home in Bellport is in Towle's South Shore legislative district, which Towle said could account for his becoming a target. But, he said, "Why not pick on your mailman, then? Why me?" The answer to that question remained a mystery. Powell and Towle said they had heard of Ford. Authorities said Ford heads a Long Island UFO Network that tries to prove the existence of space aliens. Catterson said the conversations authorities taped between Ford, 47, of 55 Sundial Lane, Bellport, and Mazzachelli, 42, of 172 Wading River Rd., Manorville, indicated that the politicians were stalked. The two are charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit murder. Ford, who until about 1 1/2 years ago was a court officer serving in state Supreme Court in Riverhead, faces 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison if convicted. Mazzachelli faces 12 1/2 to 25 years on the charge. He faces a longer sentence because he is convicted felon, who Thompson said served two prison terms upstate for burglary. They were held without bail at arraignment yesterday by First District Court Judge William Bennett in Central Islip. He rejected defense attorneys' calls for "reasonable bail," saying, "I'm concerned about putting him out in the street. The conspiracy part, this is frightening." Besides the five canisters of radium, identified by experts at Brookhaven National Laboratory, authorities said they recovered scores of weapons, including about a dozen pistols, 30 knives of numerous types and sizes, military-style rifles, gas masks, a mine sweeper and ammunition. Experts in nuclear medicine said it is unlikely that radium could be used to kill somebody, because it would have to be delivered in concentrated doses over a long period of time. Even lacing toothpaste might not be effective, they said, because the intended victim might spit out the toothpaste. "It's just not radioactive enough," said Dr. Richard Reba, the director of nuclear medicine at the University of Chicago. Alan Kuehner, a health physicist with the Radiological Assistance Program team stationed at Brookhaven lab and working under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, said prolonged exposure to radium on a person's skin could lead to a burn. If radium were ingested, he said it would concentrate in the bones and could eventually produce cancer. Officials said there was no health risk to anyone in Bellport community where the radium was found in Ford's pickup truck parked near his home. Catterson said the plot "was only in the planning stages," but Powell said he learned that the threat was to be carried out against him today. Authorities said Ford was the mastermind behind the plot and recruited Mazzachelli. In addition to the weapons, authorities said scores of pamphlets "The Freeman, Ideas on Liberties" were found in Ford's home as well. Authorities said that there was no evidence of a link between Ford and the Freemen group in Montana, or other militia groups. For the p ast year, Ford has been telling a Newsday reporter that he believed a UFO crashed in a county park in Brookhaven, and that alien bodies were taken away to Brookhaven National Lab. In recent months, he told the reporter that he was being harrassed by Suffolk County Police, and that his phone was tapped by Naval Intelligence. In none of the conversations did he mention the three targets. Ford is an enrolled Conservative and party members said he had been active in the party in Brookhaven. John Bloom, a party activist, said last night that Ford had shown interest in running for the state Assembly. Bloom said that in a telephone conversation with Ford this year to discuss a possible race he found Ford's stands on issues were in line with standard Conservative Party positions, but Ford had some views on other subjects that Bloom advised him to keep to himself. -------------------------------------------------- - Yahoo - Third Man Arrested in N.Y. Radioactive Plot  Friday June 14 2:55 PM EDT Third Man Arrested in N.Y. Radioactive Plot RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (Reuter) - A third suspect was arrested Friday in an alleged bizarre plot to kill several local Republican politicians by exposing them to radioactive material, officials said. Police found a small quantity of radium and weapons in the Medford, New York home of Edward Zabo, who was taken into custody, officials said. Two other men, one of them the president of the Long Island ``UFO Network'', were arrested and charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit murder. Further arrests were expected, officials said. District Attorney James Catterson said Thursday the alleged plot was ``something out of a novel.'' The plotters were ``so obsessed with hatred'' that they planned to spread radioactive material in their targets' cars or food in hopes they would contract incurable diseases and die, he said. Catterson said one suspect, John Ford, had solicited people to use radium isotope against Suffolk County Republican Party leader John Powell when an informant alerted the authorities Wednesday. Ford was then recorded on tape allegedly outlining the plot. The targets included two other Republicans -- county legislator Fred Towle and Brookhaven public safety director Anthony Gazzola. Investigators found five canisters of radium, a low-level radioactive material, in Ford's home, Catterson said. Catterson described Ford as a former court officer and president of the Long Island ``UFO Network.'' Also arrested on Thursday was Joseph Mazzachelli, 42, of Manorville, New York. -----------------------------------------------------------------------  Thursday June 13 5:58 PM EDT NY Police Uncover Plot Against Politicians RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (Reuter) - Investigators uncovered an apparent plot to assassinate several Long Island, New York, local politicians with radioactive material, Suffolk County authorities said Thursday. District Attorney James Catterson told a news conference that two men had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. The alleged plot was ``something out of a novel,'' he said, with radioactive material and weapons discovered in a house in Bellport, Long Island. Catterson said one of the suspects, 47-year-old John Ford, was soliciting people to use radium isotope against Suffolk County Republican Party leader John Powell when an informant alerted the District Attorney's office Wednesday. Ford was then recorded on tape outlining the plot. ``The plot was where an individual so obsessed with hatred for mainstream political figures, who with ballistics people would spread radioactive material in the seat of his car, in his food or some proximity to him in the hope that he would contract incurable diseases and cause his death,'' Catterson said. Apart from Powell, others targeted included two other Republicans, county legislator Fred Towle and Brookhaven public safety director Anthony Gazzola. Long Island is the political stronghold of Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, but he was not on the plotters' list. Investigators found five canisters of radium, a low-level radioactive material, in Ford's home, Catterson said. ``Any potential threat to public health and safety has been eliminated,'' Catterson said in a statement. ``There is no danger to the community and the material has been removed to a facility capable of its proper disposal.'' Catterson described Ford as a former court officer and president of the Long Island ``UFO Network.'' The other man arrested was identified as 42-year-old Joseph Mazzachelli of Manorville, but no further information was available on him. Investigators also found a cache of rifles and handguns, ammunition, a mine sweeper, gas mask and assorted militia literature, the Suffolk County District Attorney said. It was not known whether the men belonged to a militia.  --------------------------------------------------------------  Thursday June 13 3:39 PM EDT Plot against GOP Politicians Uncovered RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (Reuter) - Investigators uncovered an apparent plot to assassinate several local Long Island politicians with radioactive material, Suffolk County authorities said Thursday. District Attorney James Catterson told a news conference that two men had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. The alleged plot was ``something out of a novel,'' he said, with radioactive material and weapons discovered in a house in Bellport, Long Island. ``The plot was where an individual so obsessed with hatred or mainstream political figures, who with ballistics people would spread radioactive material in the seat of his car, in his food or some proximity to him in the hope that he would contract incurable diseases and cause his death,'' Catterson said. Among those on a list of people targeted in the plot was Suffolk County Republican party chairman John Powell. Others included county legislator Fred Towle and Brookhaven public safety director Anthony Gazzola. Long Island is the political stronghold of Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, but he was not on the plotter's list. Authorities identified the two men arrested as John Ford, 47, of Bellport and Joseph Mazzachelli, 42, of Manorville. Investigators found five canisters of radium, a low level radioactive material, in Ford's home. He was described by authorities as a former court officer who once headed a UFO organization. ``Any potential threat to public health and safety has been eliminated,'' Catterson said in a statement. ``There is no danger to the community and the material has been removed to a facility capable of its proper disposal.'' Investigators also found a cache of weapons, ammunition, a mine sweeper, gas mask and assorted militia literature, the Suffolk County District Attorney said. It was not known whether the men belonged to a militia.