Man Sought in High-Tech Case Sues U.S. : Anaheim Dealer Accused of Illicit Deals With Soviets Files in L.A.

An Anaheim high-technology entrepreneur indicted but not yet tried on charges of illegally shipping space satellite equipment to the Soviet Union filed a $40-million civil rights suit against the U.S. Customs Service on Thursday, charging that the government unlawfully seized electronic equipment shipments from him.

Charles McVey, who reportedly resides in Switzerland, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court, asking not only for millions of dollars in damages but demanding the return of the material seized during searches of his Orange County offices in 1982 and 1983.

Attorney Thomas Sheridan filed the action on behalf of McVey just a few days before U.S. District Judge Matt Byrne is scheduled to decide whether he is a fugitive from justice.

A court hearing dealing with that issue, among others, is scheduled Tuesday in Los Angeles. If the 55-year-old McVey is determined to be a fugitive, it will mean that he cannot use the courts to pursue the kind of claim he filed Thursday.

“The government contends he is a fugitive, but we say that is not true,” Sheridan said, “because quite simply he was out of the country at the time he was indicted and has been under no compulsion to return. He has made no effort to hide his whereabouts and is, in fact, registered with the Swiss police.”

The lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that U.S. Customs Service agent Kyle Eugene Windes conspired with other government agents to “deprive McVey of his civil rights” by knowingly using false information to obtain search warrants that led to the seizure of equipment at three offices on Armando Street in Anaheim in April of 1982 and March of 1983.

The offices were operated by Land Resources Management, a Nevada corporation, and Facilities Management Ltd., headquartered in the Cayman Islands, according to the documents filed in federal court. Customs agents, in the search warrants, maintained McVey had affiliations with both firms.

The key piece of equipment seized in the 1982 search of the Anaheim offices by government agents was a “multi-spectral electronic scanner,” which Secretary of Defense Casper W. Weinberger has described as “indispensable to military, air and satellite reconnaissance.”

Sheridan said the suit is seeking to have that piece of equipment “along with 37 pallets of other electronic items” returned instead of forfeited to the government. McVey’s attorney said the government also is trying to have forfeited a $300,000 private plane agents alleged was used to fly high-tech equipment to Mexico.

In the March 9, 1983, indictment of McVey, he is charged with shipping more than $15 million worth of computer equipment to the Soviet Union. Named as co-defendants, and also untried to date, are Rolf Leinhard, a Swiss freight forwarder, and Yuri Boyarinov, a senior consultant with Electronorteknika, the Russian company designated to acquire high-tech equipment for the Soviet military.