Baldwin accused in jet sale

A 1986 indictment alleges the Kauai man
kept $388,000 after the deal soured

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By Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.com

LIHUE >> Arizona prosecutors yesterday made public the 1986 grand jury indictment charging Kauai civic leader Gary Baldwin with four counts of theft and one count of fraud.

While the wording of the indictment was vague, sources familiar with the case said it involved the sale of a Lear jet from a Boulder Colo., company that allegedly was owned by Baldwin -- Jet Services Corp. -- to Dulaney Eye Clinic in Phoenix.

Meanwhile, Baldwin's friends and business associates on Kauai continue to insist that Baldwin was living on Kauai at the time, operating a rental car business. They say they knew nothing about him owning an executive airplane leasing and sales company in Colorado.

A group of them, headed by magazine publisher Gregg Gardiner, has hired Maui attorney Philip Lowenthal to represent Baldwin. Lowenthal did not return repeated telephone calls yesterday.

Baldwin, who was arrested at his home Monday morning by FBI agents armed with a fugitive warrant issued in Phoenix, remains in jail today. His scheduled initial court appearance today for an extradition hearing is postponed until tomorrow.

Kauai police who accompanied the agents, and Kauai Police Chief George Freitas said, "There is absolutely no chance of mistaken identity. He is the man in the warrant." But Freitas said he has been told very little about the charges against Baldwin.

No one from the eye care clinic -- now called Barnet Dulaney Perkins Eye Centers -- was willing to comment. The company conducts an extensive advertising campaign for corrective eye surgery and is well known in Phoenix.

Instead, they referred all calls to Arthur Jackson in Atlanta.

Jackson said he is a licensed private investigator who was present during the airplane sale in 1986 and met Baldwin. Jackson said it was his efforts that led the FBI to seek a fugitive warrant and arrest Baldwin.

"I know for a fact there is no mistaken identity. There is no question it's the right person," Jackson said.

Law enforcement officials said yesterday they still have not been able to locate the investigation report by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which they said is stored deep in the county archives.

They said all they could determine from available documents is that in October 1984 Baldwin allegedly sold a jet to Dulaney Eye Clinic, which paid him $388,000. For reasons that are not clear in the documents, the deal fell through.

According to the allegations against Baldwin, all the refund checks sent Dulaney by Jet Services bounced, Baldwin disappeared and Jet Services went out of business in 1986, shortly before he was indicted.

The FBI said Baldwin left behind a phony suicide note when he vanished.

Baldwin, a close ally of U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, has long been considered one of the most influential of Kauai's leaders. He is president and chief executive officer of the Kauai Economic Development Board, which attracts new high-tech businesses to the island.

Until last month when his term ended, Baldwin was Kauai's representative on the board of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. He was appointed to the Kauai Planning Commission in 1996 and twice served as its chairman.