Posted on 11/19/2003 4:10:03 PM PST by chance33_98
Man Not Guilty Of Stockpiling Missile Warheads Canadian Man Contended He Was Victim Of Government Setup
POSTED: 3:59 p.m. MST November 19, 2003
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A jury in Albuquerque has found a Canadian man innocent of charges he stockpiled hundreds of missile warheads. The jury returned the not guilty verdict Wednesday afternoon.
David Hudak, 42, had been accused of providing military training to foreign soldiers without a license and stockpiling the warheads at his counterterrorism school in southern New Mexico. The jury found Hudak innocent of all the charges.
During the six-week trial, Hudak denied the charges and claimed he was the victim of a government setup. But prosecutors contended Hudak was driven by greed in a scheme he knew was illegal.
Jury foreman John Turner said all the jurors agreed on the verdicts.
Watch for his "compound" to be mysteriously torched with him in it.
"Missile Man: David Hudak - Threat or hero?
CTV.ca News Staff
It's been more than 50 years since word spread of a flying saucer crash near Roswell, New Mexico. Ever since, Roswell has been ground zero for everything alien.
The U.S. Military has long dismissed UFO sightings, saying weather balloons and dummies were all that fell from the New Mexico sky.
By the spring of 1999, Roswell's reputation for mystery and intrigue wasn't isolated to alien and UFO sightings. A secretive counter-terrorism company, called High Energy Access Tools started operating in and around Roswell.
HEAT president, Canadian David Hudak bought a ranch about an hour from Roswell. He told a local real estate agent he liked the property in part, because it looked so much like Afghanistan.
Soon after buying the ranch, roads were carved out into the harsh landscape and bunkers and firing ranges were created for military training.
It was all a bit too frightening for local welder Smiley Singleton, who was hired to work on the ranch.
"I didn't know if it was another terrorist thing, gearing up for another September 11th attack in different form. That's what I was worried about. I didn't know this organization. I didn't know what they were into and I was worried. A lot of us were here."
The training they were doing was also causing concern in the community. The United Arab Emirates reportedly paid $12 million US to receive HEAT's specialized training for 25 members of an elite military squad.
HEAT's increasingly public profile caused more questions to be asked about its operations and soon it wasn't just curious locals doing the asking.
On August 14, 2002, HEAT's Roswell properties were raided by several U.S. government agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.
The ATF claimed to have uncovered a massive cache of weapons, worth an estimated $83 million. They found dozens of Sig Sauer pistols and Remington rifles, but that's not what really concerned the ATF.
There was crate after crate of missiles and warheads - nearly 2,400 of them, which the U.S. officials claimed David Hudak was concealing on his company's property. ATF agents claimed they had rarely seen an arsenal this size.
According to court documents the ATF described those so-called warheads as 'military weapons to be used to defeat light armoured vehicles... designed to be fired from shoulder mounted infantry weapons.'
The ATF also stated that some of those 'warheads were property of the United States,' while others had 'NATO markers.'
At the time of the raid, Hudak's visa had also expired. This made him an illegal alien in Roswell, New Mexico.
Hudak was charged with being 'an alien in possession of a firearm.' At a bail hearing, the ATF claimed that Hudak was 'a flight risk' and a 'danger to the community.' He was denied bail.
Hudak's wife, Leslie heard of the raid while in Vancouver running HEAT's parent company, International Hydro Cut Technologies.
For the past 15 years Hydro Cut has specialized in counter-terrorism products and training. Their biggest claim to fame is what's called a breaching frame.
"It would blow a man-sized entrance into the room. And so it has the element of surprise, which is critical in hostage rescue situations," says his wife.
In 1997 at the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru, Hydro Cut frames were used to free 71 hostages taken captive by rebel troops.
Hudak's company has received numerous commendations. They've provided training and equipment for Canadian local police forces, the RCMP, and the Department of National Defence.
By the late 1990s, Hydro Cut's business was growing and HEAT was set-up as a branch office in New Mexico. After September 11, the Hudaks thought the American branch of their counter-terrorism business would be booming.
"We thought HEAT was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing; training and working in the counter-terrorism field, exactly what the U.S. wants to have done right now," says Leslie Hudak.
She says her husband's interest in counter-terrorism comes from his long-standing desire to do good things.
"In high school when most people are trying to figure out what party they're going to, he was dangling from a helicopter rescuing people... Everything he's done has had an element of helping people and trying to make the world a better place, a safer place."
If David Hudak really did have the missiles and warheads the ATF said he did, then it raises a number of troubling questions for Hudak and law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border.
How did Hudak get his hands on this stockpile in the first place? What's more, how, as court documents indicate, was he able to move 2,400 so-called missiles across the U.S. into Canada and back without customs officers ever batting an eye?
There is one person who knows for certain and he's been locked inside a New Mexico jail for the past seven months.
The Torance County Detention Facility just outside Albuquerque, New Mexico has been home for David Hudak since August. The local media have dubbed him 'the missile man'.
Hudak has mostly kept to himself during the months he's spent in prison. Never speaking publicly about the charges against him, until now.
"I'm outraged, humiliated... I'm not a threat to anybody on the legitimate side of the law. That's for sure."
Hudak says that the weapons found on his property by the ATF are not what they seem.
"They are not in fact a warhead, and they certainly are not missiles or missile-assemblies... They are an explosive. They are an energetic material. They were shipped as such, stored as such and had in the past been utilized as such. But they are not warheads. If they were, they would be on the complete SMAW [Shoulder Mounted Assault Weapon] assembly in the U.S. government's inventory somewhere. They would not be in a commercial company and reported being used as a demolition product on demolition jobs."
Hudak's lawyers Bob Gorence and Tim Padilla say they have documents to prove that what the ATF found on HEAT's property had been repeatedly classified as explosive charges, not missiles or warheads.
"They were then shipped via a commercial shipper, through the United States, cleared Canada Customs, and again above board... informing Canadian governmental officials at Energy Mines and Resources what exactly was going up there... the shipping documents on the way back, where the process was reversed, again with a bill of Lading from the commercial shipper," says Gorence.
His lawyers says the estimates of their worth have also been over inflated by the ATF. According to the bill of sale, Hudak paid $3,300 for the explosives.
Documents also indicate that in April and July 2002, both the FBI and the ATF had inspected HEAT's property including the bunkers where the explosives were stored.
U.S. prosecutors in court portrayed David Hudak as a national security threat. W-FIVE requested to speak with prosecutors and the ATF in New Mexico and in Washington about the raid and the case they have against Hudak. They declined while the matter is before the courts.
Hank Lavery is a former air force pilot who now runs Security Assistance International in Washington, D.C. He applies for U.S. State Department licenses for companies like HEAT and was working on HEAT's permits at the time of the raid.
Lavery believes Hudak as a Canadian has been unfairly targetted and finds it peculiar that no other company officials from HEAT, all of whom are American, face any charges.
"I just don't see that we have a criminal here. We just have somebody who is gone afoul of the licensing process perhaps, and should be straightened out in a rather routine way rather than held in jail without bond."
But whatever the reason, it doesn't make it any easier for Hudak."How this could have happened? It's degrading. It's humiliating, makes you angry. I have to believe in the long term. In the trial, it will all come out. Justice has got to prevail in this thing."
Looks like it did. This time.
Looks like it did. This time.
Unless you take into account the fact that the expense of defending himself in a federal court has probably bankrupted him.
Even when the Feds lose, they win.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Acquitted Hudak Remains in Jail
By Scott Sandlin
Journal Staff Writer
A dramatic recitation of nine "not guilty" verdicts Wednesday in federal court concluded a 15 1/2-month ordeal for David Hudak, who was staring at 50 years in prison if convicted.
Well, almost concluded.
The 42-year-old Canadian owner of a Roswell anti-terrorism training school was acquitted of charges he conspired to violate the Arms Export Control Act by training foreign military personnel without a State Department license. He also was acquitted of the use of explosive materials in committing a felony, possessing unregistered explosive devices and being an alien in possession of a firearm.
But Hudak didn't get to savor his victory.
Instead, he remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service because of a hold placed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the time of his arrest in August 2002.
His lawyers said he probably won't be released until today.
Robert Gorence, court-appointed co-counsel with Tim Padilla for Hudak, called the glitch "a remnant of bureaucratic sloth" and said even the trial judge lacked authority to order his release. Gorence called on the U.S. Attorney's Office to help speed Hudak's release.
"They set this in motion and they have the power to derail it," he said of Hudak's continued incarceration.
U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was in court to hear the verdict, declined to comment immediately after it was read.
But a spokesman said afterward, "Obviously, we were very disappointed, but it was a case we had to try. We respect what the jury had to say, and we'll live with that decision."
The verdict was read to a packed courtroom of media, prosecutors and court personnel. Among those in a front row seat was Senior U.S. District Court Judge James A. Parker, who handled the high-profile security case against Wen Ho Lee.
Hudak's mother, Sandra, who sat with her husband, Bob, during all but the first few days of the trial, began crying as soon as U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo read the verdict on the first count.
The jury apparently heeded Gorence's exhortation in closing argument to send a message to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft by returning a quick verdict of acquittal.
Jurors, whose numbers included two Native Americans, the bailiff to the chief judge in the 13th Judicial District Court and a state court criminal clerk, listened to more than five weeks of testimony. They spent less than a day in deliberations before returning their verdict.
The judge and the prosecution had previously dismissed one count each before the case was submitted to jurors.
Gorence said afterward that the most significant evidence in favor of the defense was "the lack of evidence he did anything purposefully."
Hudak, he said, was criminally charged after he'd applied for the arms export license for his company, High Energy Access Tools Inc., and was relying on the advice of a Washington, D.C., consultant in going ahead with training while approval was pending.
"They didn't have evidence other than that he made bad business decisions," Gorence said.
Hudak's company and assets, including a ranch in Tinnie, N.M., and more than 2,000 shoulder-launched missiles he'd purchased for training, were seized in a forfeiture action. Gorence said Hudak will continue to contest the forfeiture.
Rumaldo Armijo, executive assistant U.S. attorney, said later that prosecutors had not made a final decision on the status of the forfeiture.
Meanwhile, Michael Payne, a decorated Special Forces veteran who was indicted along with Hudak, awaits sentencing for violation of the Arms Export Act. Payne, a former HEAT training specialist, entered a guilty plea in July in exchange for a prosecution agreement to recommend less than 10 years in custody. Padilla said he hopes the court will take into consideration the jury verdict in Hudak's case at sentencing.Copyright 2003 Albuquerque Journal
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