Fugitive McVey Ordered Returned to U.S. From Canada

Fugitive Charles McVey, a former Anaheim businessman, has been ordered extradited to the United States to face charges of wire fraud and attempting to defraud a computer company.

Justice Alan MacDonell ruled Friday that enough evidence had been presented against the 63-year-old McVey during the British Columbia Supreme Court extradition hearing to suggest that a jury could find him guilty of the charges in Canada.

McVey is also wanted in the United States on charges of selling high-technology computer equipment to the Soviet Union. An earlier extradition request on those charges had been denied by a British Columbia Supreme Court judge.

In California, McVey lived in Villa Park and owned several high-technology businesses in Anaheim before he was indicted in 1983 with a Swiss and Soviet national.

Federal indictments in 1983 and 1987 accuse McVey of illegally exporting high-technology equipment to the Soviet Union over a 4 1/2-year period. McVey had visited the Soviet Union several times and sent an associate to conduct training classes for Soviet computer technicians, the indictments said.

If convicted, he could face sentences of up to 125 years.

McVey had been a fugitive for four years when he was arrested Aug. 19 while on a fishing trip in Canada’s Yukon Territory.

He was recognized in August, 1987, by Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Daniel Fudge, who was having coffee in a roadside restaurant in the tiny Yukon Territory fishing town of Teslin. Fudge had seen the face only hours earlier on a wanted poster.

Fudge spotted McVey on a Tuesday and arrested him the next day after obtaining a warrant. The 6-foot, 3-inch, 300-pound McVey was arrested at a private residence.