"Probers have questions on Philadelphia airport pact"

Thursday, May 6, 2004

Probers have questions on airport pact
4 officials called in cell tower issue
By DAVE DAVIES & RAMONA SMITH
The Philadelphia (PA) News


Four Philadelphia International Airport officials who evaluated
companies competing for a city cell phone tower deal were quizzed
yesterday before the federal grand jury probing city contracts.

The tower management deal ultimately went to a company that had pledged
20 percent of its profits to a Germantown Avenue firm owned by
politically active Muslim cleric Imam Shamsud-din Ali.

Jeff Shull, chief of staff in the city Aviation Division, declined to
comment as he entered the old Federal Courthouse at 9th and Market
streets at 10:30 a.m.

When asked what the grand jury might want to talk to him about, he
replied, "I'm sorry. I really can't say anything."

"He's been told that he's an informational witness, that he's not a
target or a subject of the investigation. He cooperated fully," said
attorney Michael J. Holston, hired by the city to represent some of the
employees questioned in the probe.

Also quizzed before the grand jury yesterday were Tom Becker, assistant
aviation director; Jim Lynch, terminal operations manager, and Tom
Varughese, engineering project manager.

All, like Shull, were "informational" witnesses and were in and out
within half an hour, said Sandra Moser, a lawyer working with Holston,

The four were members of a six-man panel that gave a slightly higher
rating to an offer from AAT Communications Corp. and its local minority
partner, Ali's Keystone Information and Financial Services, than to a
proposal from SpectraSite Communications Inc., which might have paid the
city $200,000 more.

The 2001 pact could be worth more than $100,000 to Ali's firm. The city
and AAT are currently making about $102,000 apiece a year.


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