JUSTICE: Hughes Off the Hook

In a Reno courtroom last week, U.S. District Court Judge Bruce R. Thompson left absolutely no doubt about his low opinion of the Government's case. "The worst criminal pleading I've ever encountered," he snapped. With that, Thompson dismissed charges of stock manipulation, conspiracy, wire fraud and other offenses brought against Billionaire Howard Hughes and four co-defendants for their part in a successful effort from June 1968 to April 1970 to acquire the foundering Air West airline (now Hughes Air West). Thompson, regarded as a tough but fair-minded judge, found no clear criminal activity in the indictment and agreed with defense attorneys that the charges were ineptly drawn. Said the exasperated judge: "It would be a perversion of justice to require any defendant to go to trial under this particular indictment."

Deeply embarrassed, federal prosecutors confessed that the indictment had been hastily drafted; because of the case's complexity, the feds finished preparing their charges only four days before the statute of limitations was due to run out. The prosecutors vowed to redraw and resubmit the charges in as little as three weeks, though they have six months. "The matter is going back to the grand jury because we feel we have a case," said U.S. Attorney V. De Voe Heaton. Added another federal prosecutor: "This thing isn't dead yet, not by a long shot."