Jury to Begin Deliberations in Pilot Trial

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. —  A jury of Marine Corps officers will begin deliberating today in the court-martial of a Marine pilot accused of conspiring to destroy a personal videotape shot minutes before his jet sheared ski lift cables in Italy in 1998, killing 20.

During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor Maj. Daniel Daugherty said Marine Capt. Richard Ashby conspired with his navigator, Capt. Joseph Schweitzer, to hide and later destroy the videotape to keep it out of the hands of U.S. and Italian investigators.

Daugherty said the tape would have shed light on what went on in the cockpit of the EA-6B Prowler, including the crewmen’s conversations, before it struck the ski cables near the mountain town of Cavalese in February 1998, killing everyone in a gondola that plunged to the ground.

Ashby, 32, of Mission Viejo, Calif., could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

In closing arguments, defense attorney Frank Spinner said Ashby and Schweitzer, shaken by the accident and the emergency landing, simply decided to take the tape with them. At the time of the landing, they didn’t realize they had sheared ski lift cables, Spinner said.