Brother Held in Failed Helicopter Prison Break

The brother of a marijuana smuggler was ordered held without bail Monday after his arrest in Los Angeles on charges of plotting his brother’s spectacular escape attempt from a Florida prison.

Mark Kramer, a Los Angeles law clerk who had worked for the Burbank city attorney, is charged with hiring a helicopter pilot to swoop into a prison yard April 17 near Miami where his brother, Benjamin Kramer, was serving a life sentence for running a $12-million-a-year drug-smuggling operation.

The escape attempt failed when the helicopter, with Kramer grasping one of its skids, snagged a tail rotor on a 14-foot fence and plummeted to the ground. Kramer’s ankle was broken in the crash. The pilot, Charles Stevens, suffered two broken legs and injuries to his head, neck and back.

In a hearing before a federal magistrate in Los Angeles, authorities said Mark Kramer plotted the escape attempt over the telephone with his brother, bought the helicopter, recruited the pilot and sent him to helicopter flight school.

Benjamin Kramer, a former world champion powerboat racer, had already been sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole on the marijuana-smuggling charges and had been transferred to Miami to stand trial in a separate drug-smuggling and money-laundering case.

In that case, Kramer and his father were indicted along with the late Sam Gilbert, a millionaire Los Angeles contractor and controversial booster of UCLA athletics.

Gilbert died four days before the indictment was returned, charging him with laundering $14 million in drug profits for Kramer’s marijuana-smuggling ring. His son, Michael Gilbert, still faces trial with the Kramers and a fourth co-defendant, Melvyn Kessler, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

A deputy U.S. marshal testified Monday that Benjamin Kramer telephoned his brother from prison in March and mentioned the theme song to the film and television series “MASH,” “Suicide Is Painless.”

Benjamin “said something about ‘the doctor’ and an ‘injury,’ ” the deputy, Thomas Figmik, testified. “He said $7,000 was going to be needed for an operation to repair something.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. David Katz said prison authorities believe now that the conversation related to damage to a Piper Aztec aircraft that Kramer planned to fly to Colombia after his helicopter escape.

Stevens, who is now cooperating with authorities, has told authorities Mark Kramer gave him $60,000 for the Piper Aztec, $35,000 to buy a two-seat Bell helicopter and $34,500 for another plane and expenses, Katz said. Because he was certified to fly only fixed-wing aircraft, Stevens also took a few helicopter lessons at Kramer’s expense, the prosecutor said.

Stevens has told investigators that Mark Kramer threatened him into carrying out the daring escape attempt, Katz said, adding: “He repeatedly told him, ‘Don’t rip me off, don’t rip my brother off. If you don’t go through with it, or if you screw it up, we know where your family is. My brother is a powerful and influential person.’ ”

Mark Kramer was able to tell Stevens in what state Stevens’ daughter was residing, Katz said.

Mark Kramer’s attorney, Larry Rosen, declined to comment on the case Monday, saying it is his policy not to discuss cases outside court. But during the hearing, he raised questions about whether investigators were certain it was Mark Kramer talking over the telephone about the escape attempt, and noted that there has been previous testimony that Mark Kramer was not involved in his brother’s smuggling operation.

A police official who knows Stevens has been quoted as saying he was “a mercenary type who would do anything for hire,” Rosen noted in questioning one witness, and he pointed out that the pilot’s statements to investigators were made shortly after the crash, when he was in great pain.

Katz said Mark Kramer previously had lived in a Beverly Hills house. The $7,000 monthly mortgage payment was paid by his brother through Gilbert’s company, Katz said. But Rosen said Kramer was living in a one-bedroom Los Angeles apartment when he was arrested last week.

U.S. Magistrate Ralph Geffen, citing evidence that an estimated $48 million earned by Kramer’s drug-smuggling operation is still unaccounted for, found that Kramer presented too great a risk of flight outside the country to be released on bail.

He ordered him returned to Florida to stand charges of aiding and abetting an escape and conspiracy to assist in an escape.