FBI search of Clifton house called 'waste of time'
Published in the Asbury Park Press 7/28/00
By JASON METHOD and
JAMES W. PRADO ROBERTS
STAFF WRITERS
A LAWYER for the Clifton businessman whose house was searched Wednesday by federal agents suggested yesterday the search was a tactic to force Logan to cooperate with their investigation into the October killings of two penny stock promoters in Colts Neck and their business dealings.
The FBI searched the home of Joe T. Logan Jr. Wednesday and lawyer Michael Critchley said yesterday authorities may have been trying to send a strong message to his client. Critchley said Logan is not cooperating with ongoing investigations into the murder and the victims' complex stock dealings, but wouldn't explain why.
Albert Alain Chalem, 41, and Maier S. Lehmann, 37, were gunned down execution-style Oct. 25 in the Colts Neck mansion Chalem shared with his fiancee. Sources familiar with the investigation have said Logan visited the house that day.
Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye has said he believes the murder was prompted by a business deal gone awry and organized crime may have been involved.
The three have been involved in business deals together and sources familiar with the investigation have said Logan visited the house the morning of the murder. The prosecutor's office has said previously it doesn't think Logan is a suspect. "In evaluating what the government did here, a cynic might construe it to be a form of pressure," Critchley said. "After they examine all of the documents they seized, they are going to realize they wasted seven hours in searching for the documents, and however much time they spend evaluating."
Authorities involved in the investigation of the unsolved murders and of two men's business dealings declined comment yesterday.
Critchley said he had no idea of any business dealings among Logan, Chalem and Lehmann that would be of interest to investigators. A federal grand jury sitting in Newark is probing the financial dealings of the murder victims, sources have said, but not the murders themselves, which are in Monmouth County's jurisdiction. Critchley said Logan has not testified before the grand jury.
But court records, SEC documents and interviews with former business associates indicate the three men had significant financial ties. Among the connections, the Asbury Park Press has found: Logan was an investor in Global DataTel Inc., a South American computer networking company based in Florida, according to Marlboro stock analyst Stuart Bockler. The company was touted on www.stockinvestor.com, which Chalem and Lehman were operating shortly before their deaths, Monmouth County authorities have said. Global DataTel officials have said they were unaware of Chalem's and Lehmann's activities. Chalem was a hidden partner in a fledgling heroin detoxification company when a company headed by Logan, Aviation Industries, bought it in February 1998, according to a November interview with Bennett L. Oppenheim. Oppenheim was a founder of the Fort Lee detoxification company, CITAmericas Inc., and continued to work in the program after Aviation Industries bought it. Logan worked with Chalem during Logan's well-publicized attempts to resurrect the now-defunct Kiwi International Airlines of Newark, according to former Kiwi owner Dr. Charles C. Edwards, a Baltimore surgeon. In his attempt to save Kiwi, Logan introduced Chalem to Edwards, who ultimately lost $20 million in the airline. That introduction, at a 1998 dinner meeting, did not lead to a new deal. Logan told Edwards, however, that Chalem could help generate interest in Kiwi Airlines, Edwards said. According to a court filing made by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Logan, Chalem and Lehmann met at the Plaza Hotel in New York in late December 1997 to discuss using penny stocks as collateral in a day-trading brokerage account.
The deal fell through. But at that meeting, Lehmann met Allen Lloyd Conkling, who was later hired by Lehmann to promote a Massachusetts technology company to investors. The SEC ultimately charged Lehmann and dozens of other defendants with fraud in an Internet stock scam involving that company. Lehmann paid $630,000 to settle his charges without admitting guilt. Logan was not involved in that business deal.
Conkling, who was not charged, also served as investor relations representative for one of two companies Logan used to try to raise money for Kiwi, through Aviation Industries. Conkling, who runs a Long Island motel once controlled by Chalem, could not be reached for comment.
Conkling and another man, both friends of Chalem, found the bullet-ridden bodies of Chalem and Lehmann at the Colts Neck house about 1 a.m. Oct. 26.
Logan's highest-profile business venture was his failed attempt to save start-up airline Kiwi from bankruptcy, beginning in 1996. When he first became involved with Kiwi, Logan was president of Wasatch International Corp., a Florida-based company with purported investments in Bahamas beachfront properties and a cruise ship in Florida. To Kiwi employees, Logan represented the last hope for the bankrupt discount airline founded in 1992.
But within weeks after Wasatch took control of Kiwi in 1996, it became clear that the company was unable to come up with the promised $5 million. Instead, Logan turned to Dr. Ed-wards, the Baltimore surgeon. Al-though Edwards said he only intended to invest $4 million or $5 million in the company, Edwards ultimately be-came Kiwi's majority owner, investing $20 million.
In the meantime, Edwards said, Lo-gan began introducing him to other potential investors who might help.
At a dinner meeting in 1998, Logan introduced Edwards to Chalem. Ed-wards said it was his understanding that Chalem was not a potential inves-tor, but one of a half-dozen stock promoters who would create new in-terest in Aviation Industries.
Ultimately, that dinner meeting pro-duced no new money, and the Rose-land-based Aviation Industries did not save Kiwi as Logan had hoped. But if that meeting had produced new inves-tors, Edwards said, Chalem "very like-ly, if it had become a public company, would have played a role."
Another Logan lawyer, Jerome Sel-vers of Freehold, has said Logan dis-puted the reason for the meeting. Selvers said his client told him that Edwards wanted to discuss producing promotional materials for Kiwi, and Chalem had an association with a printing shop.
Logan also used Aviation Industries itself to find Kiwi investors. That company was promoted on a Web site prosecutors said Chalem and Leh-mann used to hype cheap stocks on the Internet.
Logan's airline adventures, though, didn't fly far.
"The bottom line is it was a whole house of cards," Gregory W. Buhler, Kiwi's former general counsel, said of Logan's efforts.
Logan resigned as president of Avia-tion Industries in April 1998 after the Tampa Tribune newspaper in Florida reported the company made false as-sertions to attract investors and that Logan falsely claimed to have earned a degree at the University of Florida.
On Dec. 13, a bankruptcy judge in Newark approved the liquidation of Kiwi's remaining assets.
Staff writer Peter Eichenbaum con-tributed to this story.
Published on July 28, 2000
app.com |
