The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 36

-SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1980 TUE INDIANAPOLIS STAR PAGE 36- Plane hauled 4 tons of police grass BRANCH HAS BEEN the target of suspicion among federal narcotics agents and Indianapolis police for more than two with drug smuggling occurred earlier this year, when U.S. Customs agents tracked on radar a twin engine Beechcraft in Florida. THE PLANE WAS observed on radar flying erratically, and agents were dispatched to investigate. After it landed. Customs agents searched the plane and found "garbage," or marijuana residue, inside, officials said.

Piloting the craft was an Indianapolis area man who authorities confirmed has ties with Branch. The man had flown his own plane from here to Florida, where he then leased the Beechcraft. Because it was leased and the pilot claimed he was unaware of the residue or how it got there, he was not arrested. "At this point in time I don't have any comment," said Steven D. Allen.

aboard, were involved in a plot to smuggle marijuana when the "airplane accident" occurred. Cross, a former flight engineer -and mechanic for the Voyager 1000 travel club, was "buying and selling airplanes" when he died in the Colombia crash, family members said. His body, burned beyond recognition after the crash, was returned by Colombian authorities when a U.S. senator intervened on the family's behalf. The plane which crashed in Colombia, also a twin-engine craft, was purchased from the same Miami (Fla.) business where the ill-fated DC-3 piloted by Curry was bought.

The latest incident to fuel suspicions that Branch might knowingly be linked years, according to federal investigators. They occasionally monitored his purchases and restorations of aging twin-engine aircraft at the Indianapolis Inter national Airport Combs-Gates terminal. The planes, similar to the DC-3 that landed at Kelly Field, are typical of the aircraft used in marijuana smuggling missions. It was such a plane that Branch leased to Richard C. Curry a skilled but unlicensed pilot who formerly was the chief pilot of an international drug smuggling conspiracy known as "the Company." That plane, a DC-3 carrying several thousand pounds of marijuana, crashed in 1978 in Florida swampland when Curry imum load, which would have been 4 or tons for a DC-3," Munn said.

He said police there suspect the plane was probably met by several trucks, which unloaded the cargo and transported it out of the state. "We only recovered 1 ton of it. We're just wondering where the other 3 or 4 tons of it are by now," Munn continued. When the plane finally landed at Kelly Field, a tiny airstrip just south of Mooresville, investigators found only marijuana residue on board. Four men three at Mooresville and one in South Carolina have been arrested in connection with the alleged drug smuggling operation.

THOSE ARRESTED in Indiana when the DC-3 ended its trip were Robert A. Branch, 43, Mooresville; Chris J. Price, 24, Mulberry, and James H. Hastings, 35, a dentist who until recently practiced at Connersville. All were charged in federal court with conspiracy to possess marijuana and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.

All have been freed on bond. Bv VIC CALECA And JAMES A. GILLASPV The aging DC-3 that led U.S. Customs agents on an aerial chase from Florida to Mooresville on Thursday almost certainly was on a return flight from Colombia, South America, and had been loaded with several tons of marijuana, police said Friday. Hugh Munn, a spokesman for South Carolina's State Law Enforcement Divi- sion.

said police suspect the plane was loaded with at least 4 tons of marijuana, which was probably worth up to $4 million in street sales. South Carolina law enforcement agents recovered more than a 'ton of "nigh grade" marijuana believed unloaded from the plane early Thursday when it landed near Columbia, on its way from Florida to Indiana. Markings on the bags which contained the marijuana indicated it had come from Colombia, Munn said. 1 "WE'RE SLUE IT (the plane) was transporting more than a ton. There's just no way they would have made a trip to Colombia without picking up the max- Andrew P.

Drake, 34, Orlando. who was arrested driving the truck loaded with marijuana in South Carolina, is being held in the Lexington County (SC.) Jail on charges of conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute and conspiracy to transport marijuana with intent to deliver. His bond, Munn said, has been set at $1 million. MUCH OF THE marijuana confiscated from the truck driven by Drake had been compacted and stuffed in plastic garbage bags, said Munn. Thirty-four bags, weighing about 50 pounds each, were taken from the truck.

Four large bales of marijuana, which each weighed more than 200 pounds, also were confiscated. Munn said all of the marijuana was scheduled to be burned in the blast furnace of a South Carolina steel mill Friday afternoon. The aircraft impounded at Mooresville by federal authorities was transferred Friday to Indianapolis International Airport. The plane was registered to Wayne Sturman Aircraft Sales Inc. of Titusville, according to Federal Aviation Administration officials at Oklahoma City.

STURMAN, IN A 1979 copyrighted article which appeared in the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) News, admitted he sold planes to drug dealers as president of Tico Flight Center which also is located at Titusville. "Sure, I sell airplanes to drug smugglers." the News quoted him as saying. "But they don't come in here and tell me that. They just give me cash and off they go" He told The Indianapolis Star on Friday that he "sold a DC-3 to some parachuters up in that (Mooresville) area about six months ago." Branch, one of those arrested at Mooresville Thursday, 4O0h' YEAR (Jlnniversary Sale 00 BLUE SPRUCE 6 ft. $60 CRIMSON KING MAPLE "iSSS" $9500 and another Company pilot attempted to land it after returning from Colombia.

SUCH PLANES, however, also are the type Branch uses in conjunction with his parachuting school. Because of this legitimate use, and because investigators were unsure whether Branch knew planes he leased would be used to haul illicit drugs, local Drug Enforcement Administration officials alerted U.S. Customs authorities to post a "lookout" on another of Branch's planes. Authorities suspect that plane crashed in South America in April or May 1979, shot down by Colombian authorities. Aboard the plane, they believe, was Lawrence M.

Cross, 39, a former Indianapolis resident identified as a business partner with Branch. Family members confirmed only that Cross, believed by authorities to have been shot during the Colombian incident, died in an airplane accident in Colombia in May 1979. HOWEVER, THEY have not confirmed authorities' suspicion that Cross, and at least one and perhaps two other men Arbitration sought by Perry teachers spurned by board Other Specie on Sola Include HAWTHORN LINDEN BALD CYPRESS jfL HURRY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST! FREE PROFESSIONAL ADVICE J. SAT. 9-3 NEW AUGUSTA NURSERY Inc.

SI 61 W. 59th Indianapolis 291-6144 owns and operates Parachutes and Associates, a skydiver training firm with headquarters at Kelly Field. P- vfT It STA METRO HEPOIT Perry Township School Board members Friday said they will no( allow the district's long-running teacher contract dispute to be submitted to binding arbitration for a settlement. Although Perry Education Association officials reacted with surprise and disappointment to the decision, they said teachers have no intention of going out on strike to force a settlement. THE MOST LIKELY possibility at this point, they said, is that normal negotiations will resume and that the present impasse will continue indefinitely.

Thomas E. Coahran, school board vice-president, said most board members decided to reject binding arbitration because they believe a settlement should be reached at the bargaining table instead of through an outside arbitrator. Probably our main reason is that an arbitrator is not part of our community and has no vested interest in our school system. I prefer that we make a settlement between ourselves." he said. "We don't feel we have anything to gain by going into binding arbitration." LNDER BINDING arbitration, the unresolved issues of the contract disagreement would have been submitted to an impartial arbitrator to solve.

Both sides would have been required to go along with the arbitrator's decision. Kenneth Knabel, president of the Perry Township Education Association, said the school board's decision disappointed him. "This just shows that the school board and the superintendent here don't want to get this settled. They just want to beat the teachers down and step on them," Knabel said. "We're going to stay with it so we can show everyone that when teachers stay within the law, they get stepped on." "WHEN THEY STRIKE and the parents get mad because the kids have to stay home and start pressuring the board, that's when something happens.

But if they stay on the job and stay within the law. nothing happens. Well, we're just going to prove that here," he added. Knabel said the education association proposed binding arbitration to the school board earlier this week because members felt it was the only way to resolve the contract disagreements quickly. "We certainly didn't feel we would win anything in particular by going to binding arbitration.

In fact, we sat down and figured we'd lose every point," he said. THE PRIMARY ISSUE separating the two sides at this point is how large a raise the teachers should receive under a new contract. The administration's last offer made in September was for a 7 5 percent increase. Administrators say that offer will not change. "We really have explored all the possibilities that I'm aware of.

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