Ex-Congress Aide’s Ties to Sperry Corp. Probed

Federal agents in the Pentagon fraud case are investigating what they suspect are falsified documents involving an airplane rented to the Sperry Corp. and owned by the former chief aide to the late Rep. Joseph P. Addabbo (D-N. Y.), according to interviews and documents obtained by The Times.

The former aide, Richard W. Seelmeyer, whose Maryland home was searched last week by federal agents working on the Pentagon fraud case, bought the plane, an eight-seat, twin-propeller Piper Navajo Chieftain, and set up a firm called Transport Corp. of America shortly before Addabbo died in April, 1986.

Sperry executives began using the plane on a frequent basis just before Seelmeyer left government service after Addabbo’s death, and the fees they paid appear to have been important to the fledgling company in its early days.

Invoices Seized

The agents who searched Seelmeyer’s home seized invoices they suspect were falsified, according to Dana Seelmeyer, the former aide’s daughter and a corporate officer of Transport Corp. of America, which owned only one plane.

“He had (an oral) contract with Sperry,” she said.

Her father, whom Addabbo once described as “my alter ego,” served for about six years as Addabbo’s administrative assistant. As chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Addabbo was known on Capitol Hill as an ardent advocate of Sperry, whose Great Neck plant is situated just outside of his Queens district.

It is unclear how Seelmeyer obtained an agreement with the giant defense contractor only weeks after forming his company or why Sperry turned to his tiny service for transportation.

Nevertheless, the arrangement enabled Seelmeyer to start a new business that immediately got work from a major corporation at rates that one former Transport Corp. of America employee said were higher than those charged for other airplanes of that size.

In Midst of Merger

In addition, Seelmeyer’s dealings occurred at a sensitive time for Sperry, which was in the midst of a $4.8-billion merger with the Burroughs Corp. and was vying for a share of a $9-billion Aegis defense system contract.

The Aegis contract is now being examined as part of the nationwide investigation into charges of fraud and bribery in the nation’s weapons procurement system.

The Times has reported that former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Melvyn R. Paisley--a central figure in the scandal--abruptly revised bidding rules on the contract in a way that favored Sperry, which became Unisys Inc. after its merger with Burroughs.

A spokesman for Unisys has not responded to questions asked by The Times during the last two weeks. Seelmeyer has repeatedly refused to comment on the matter.

Seelmeyer, 53, received about $66,000 a year as Addabbo’s aide and now publishes a newsletter called Capitol Hill Defense Digest in addition to his involvement with Transport Corp. of America.

House ethics rules allow congressmen and their aides to do business with companies such as Sperry unless the business relationships come about “by virtue of influence improperly exerted from (their) position in the Congress.”

‘I Think It’s Bad’

When asked about business arrangements such as Seelmeyer’s with Sperry, Geoffrey Hazard, a Yale law professor who drafted the current ethics guidelines for the American Bar Assn., said: “I think it’s bad . . . . The natural inference is they wouldn’t have awarded the contract except for this guy’s position with the congressman.”

The total amount of money that Seelmeyer has made through his business with Sperry could not be learned. But interviews and flight records from the airline’s first three months of operation--from April 28 to July 23 of 1986--show that:

--Sperry executives used Seelmeyer’s plane for at least 19 flights during this period. The plane was based at Long Island’s Republic Field, the nearest general aviation airport to Sperry’s Great Neck plant.

--A former airline employee who asked not to be identified said he recalled that Seelmeyer charged Sperry about $500 an hour--at least $100 an hour more than some other companies billed for the same model aircraft, according to estimates by operators. At that rate, the 65 hours of flight time recorded over the three-month period would have grossed Seelmeyer about $32,500.

--Frequent passengers on the plane were Sperry engineers, but flight records show that on July 11, 1986, a “Mr. and Mrs. Gardner” traveled in the plane to the East Hampton shore at the start of a summer weekend. At that time, Sperry’s vice president in charge of the Aegis program at Great Neck was Charles F. Gardner, now a defense consultant who is a central figure in the Pentagon procurement investigation.

No Comment on Trip

Gardner and his attorney, Gary P. Naftalis, said this week that they had no comment about the trip.

Recently released court documents allege that the procurement scandal touches a number of defense consultants who allegedly bribed Defense Department officials to get insider information, including highly classified data, on military contracts.

In addition to Addabbo, federal investigators are looking into ties between defense consultants and other members of Congress, but the June 28 search of Seelmeyer’s home was the first time agents had seized records from someone who has served in a congressional office.

In 1982, it was widely reported that Addabbo helped Sperry by turning a deaf ear to Pentagon protests and urging the Navy to buy the firm’s radar system for the FFG7 Oliver Perry-class frigate. The system was a forerunner of the Aegis.

Defense Department experts argued at the time that the Sperry system, estimated to cost $2.2 billion, would be virtually useless because it would not be effective against the frigates’ greatest threat, the Soviet Union’s radar-evading stealth-type anti-ship missiles.

Yet Addabbo prevailed on his colleagues to approve the Sperry radar every year until he turned his attention to pushing an even more profitable contract for the company in 1985.

That year, Addabbo helped Sperry obtain part of the coveted Aegis program. Addabbo is said to have lobbied for Sperry to share the contract with RCA without competitive bidding.

GAO Criticized Move

The move was criticized by the General Accounting Office as well as lawmakers from New Jersey, where RCA is based. But Addabbo’s wishes were honored by the military. Then-Assistant Navy Secretary Paisley intervened to allow both companies to share the Aegis work, a high priority for the Navy through the year 2000.

While Addabbo was acting as the firm’s advocate, Sperry employees and their spouses donated $10,600 to his political committee at a December, 1985, fund-raiser, Federal Election Commission records show.

On the day his house was searched, Seelmeyer acknowledged to the Washington Post that he had had a contract with Sperry from 1986 through September, 1987.

Seelmeyer incorporated Transport Corp. of America on March 19, 1986, 12 days after Addabbo fell into a fatal coma. Seelmeyer’s modest residence in Berwyn Heights, Md., was listed as the firm’s address. Dana and her then-15-year-old sister, Julie, were listed as the only other corporate officers, state records show.

Bought Plane With Loan

FAA records show that the airline took out a $162,273 loan and bought the Navajo Chieftain on April 7--four days before the congressman died. Seelmeyer left the public payroll on April 30, House records show, two days after the Sperry flights began.

Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-N. Y.) was Sperry’s guest aboard a June 6 flight to Windsor Locks, Conn., where he toured a nearby Sperry facility as chairman of a House Science and Technology subcommittee. Scheuer aide George Burke said this week that the congressman was urging the Federal Aviation Administration to buy a weather radar system from either Sperry or Raytheon Corp.