"National airport sweep catches only little fish"

Saturday, November 2, 2002

National airport sweep catches only little fish 
By Sean Holstege 
The Oakland (CA) Tribune


Years ago, five East Bay men made errors of judgment and tried to cover
their tracks, and like many people with spotty pasts, they hoped the
story would end there. 

It didn't. 

These men landed jobs at Oakland International Airport, where they had
security badges, access to airplanes and secrets to keep. 

One year ago today, their pasts caught up with them in a national sweep
called Operation Tarmac. 

The men never imagined their indiscretions would get tangled in the
federal government's war to stamp out terrorism. 

Their crimes had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or his international
network of al-Qaida killers. But their cases offer a peek into the
post-Sept. 11 national security crackdown and a view of the lax system
of background checks that existed before.

The crimes ranged from hiding a gun under the front seat of a car and
carrying more than an ounce of pot to embezzling $39,000 in jewelry in
three days from a Bay Area department store. 

Federal airport security regulations bar job applicants from making "any
fraudulent or intentionally false statement in any application for any
security program." 

In April, investigators rounded up the five men and charged them with
lying about felony convictions to illegally get airport work.
Investigators called them a threat to airport security. Attorney General
John Ashcroft described similar arrests around the nation as a "wake-up
call." 

These five men were the only Bay Area suspects whose names were
released. Dozens of people in the Bay Area and hundreds more around the
country were secretly charged with immigration violations and have faded
from view, because the Justice Department refuses to release their
names. 

Mario De Angelo Lloyd, Charles Wesley Mathis II, Ulysses Peter Walker,
Donald Aaron Coleman and Thomas Robert Burgess were not so invisible. 

Lloyd and his attorney declined requests for interviews. Attorneys for
the remaining four Operation Tarmac suspects declined repeated interview
requests over a period of two months, and friends and relatives of the
suspects did not return phone calls. 

Their story emerges from federal court records in Oakland and from
superior court records in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Diego counties
dating back 10 years. 

Mario De Angelo Lloyd, a 27-year-old living in a Stuart Street apartment
in Berkeley, has the longest criminal record and one of the shortest
federal cases. He pleaded guilty to the government's charges on June 7. 

His problems began in 1993 when he was a salesman in the jewelry
department at Montgomery Ward in Richmond. Over the course of three days
he sold 26 rings, watches and gold chains and rang them up for a tiny
fraction of their value. He sold a 3-carat ring worth $4,899 for $4.99
and a 1-carat ring worth $1,999 for $1.99. By the end of his spree, the
store had estimated it was out $38,788. Lloyd admitted his act and was
unrepentant. 

"I was angry with Ward's for not paying me enough, so I decided to give
the majority of the customers discounts even though it profited me
none," he told store security. "I didn't care at the time. My aim was to
screw Montgomery Ward's." 

Lloyd was charged with embezzlement. He pleaded no contest and was
sentenced to a year in jail and three years' probation for the felony. 

Then in 1996, a San Pablo police officer caught him carrying a loaded 9
mm semiautomatic pistol in public. He pleaded guilty to felony weapons
charges and was sentenced to 210 days in county jail. 

By February 2001, when he applied for a job as laborer for Oakland
International Airport, he had an alias, Jay Tanuvasu. He declined to
mention it or his two felony convictions, and for some reason the
airport's background check on Lloyd came back clean. 

Operation Tarmac caught up with him on April 24, when he surrendered to
the FBI in Oakland. On June 7 he pleaded guilty to "entering a secure
area of an airport by fraud or false pretense" and was sentenced to six
months in prison and a $5,000 fine. 

His pastor pleaded leniency, writing to the court, "If anyone did not
deserve this unfortunate chain of events to evolve Mario did not." 

"He volunteers his time and energy effortlessly working with our youth,
sometimes sharing his experiences so that they understand how important
it is to live an upstanding life," pastor L.J. Douglas wrote. "Mario has
been consistent in his efforts to turn his life around since he and I
met in April 1997." 

Lloyd is still employed at the airport but stripped of his security
badge. He paints and resurfaces parking lots, and does light
construction and maintenance in the public areas of the airport. 

The airport also failed to uncover the history of 33-year-old Pittsburg
man Charles Wesley Mathis II, when he applied for a job as a laborer in
1999. 

Seven years earlier he had been convicted of a misdemeanor charge of
carrying a loaded firearm in his car. FBI agents served an arrest
warrant at his home in April, and the case before a federal magistrate
remains open. He is still employed as a semiskilled laborer by the
airport, where he lost his security badge and works in public areas. 

Ulysses Peter Walker of Oakland, 46, got a security badge at the airport
eight months after he was convicted in 1999 on weapons charges. When
federal investigators later asked him to explain why he signed a sworn
statement to his employer that he had no felony convictions, Walker told
them, "My supervisor told me to fill out the paperwork that way." 

He worked at Ogden Aviation Services for $8.65 an hour until last
November. 

His latest troubles stem from a 1999 Oakland Police Department search
warrant at his home near Highland Hospital. Police found a nylon bag
with two revolvers, a shock stick in his car and security guard uniforms
and boxes of bullets in his bedroom. 

Another East Oakland man, Jerry Lee, told police that he had known
Walker 25 years and they worked together as security guards at the
Albertson's store on East 18th Street. 

Lee said Walker often asked him to ride home with him because Walker was
nervous about his safety, having arrested drug dealers at the
supermarket. Lee told police he had inadvertently left his gear in
Walker's car and that he had permits for the guns. 

Walker later pleaded guilty. He had a 1987 drug conviction. 

In June 2001 his felony was knocked down to a misdemeanor, and he was
put on probation. 

He told the federal court that he collects $410 a month in worker's
compensation but pays $230 in alimony for two children to a wife in San
Diego, plus pays $2,000 a month in rent and $498 a month in payments for
a 1997 SUV. 

His case is pending. 

Two other Operation Tarmac suspects have close San Diego connections. 

Both worked for Huntleigh USA Corp. as skycaps. Both had arrests and
convictions in San Diego County within a month of each other in 1995,
and listed addresses five blocks apart. One of the Operation Tarmac
cases has been dismissed, the other is pending. 

Thomas Robert Burgess, 37, has three felony drug convictions,
prosecutors said. In his most recent case, he pleaded guilty in 1995 to
carrying and intending to sell more than an ounce of pot, after spending
two days in jail. 

He came to Oakland and tried to start over. Two years after his
conviction in San Diego, he told employers at Huntleigh his record was
clean, and he repeated the claim twice. 

Burgess lists an address in Oakland's comfortable Dimond district, and
told the court that until his arrest in April he earned $46,000 a year
as a skycap. He reported that he supports two children in San Diego and
pays $600 a month in rent, but has less than $600 in his savings
account. 

The government dropped its case against Burgess on June 6. 

Donald Aaron Coleman's story runs a close parallel, except for the
outcome, which remains unresolved. 

Coleman, 33, also worked as a Huntleigh skycap and was arrested and
convicted in San Diego for possession of a loaded gun, within one month
of Burgess' case. 

Coleman told the court he owns a house in San Diego, five blocks from
Burgess' address. 

Coleman came to Oakland airport in 1999, when he declared he had a clean
record, a claim he repeated a year later. 

He supports four children, the youngest 6 months old. Investigators for
the FBI, Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation
Administration were scouring his criminal background while he was taking
care of his newborn baby. 

Coleman reports an aunt on Oakland's Skyline Drive and told the court he
makes minimum wage -- $1,000 a month -- but pays $1,100 a month for his
San Diego house. He also pays $300 a month for child care and $550 a
month for a 3-year-old SUV. 

The record of the five Operation Tarmac suspects clearly shows they are
no terrorists, or even big-time crooks. But security risks? 

"There can't be any compromises when it comes to airport security," said
FBI Special Agent Andy Black at the time of the arrests. "In addition to
being convicted felons, they lied about their status. So there is a
trust issue." 

Other investigators recognized that background checks can shake loose a
lot of suspects from the cobwebs, but were realistic about how far the
operation could go. "We could have had 30 or 40 more, but then the U.S.
Attorney would have to prosecute them all. We started with the people
who were the most serious violators," said one law enforcement official,
on condition of anonymity. 

"Our biggest concern was that they had access to secure areas, not that
they would be an imminent danger to the public."


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