Ex-Venice flight school owner with 9/11 connection imprisoned

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...ion-imprisoned

Published: Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 7:10 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 8:05 p.m.

Rudi Dekkers blamed his inadvertent connection to the 9/11 terrorist attacks for costing him his job, his marriage and his reputation.

But terrorism is not related to Dekkers’ current troubles, which have the former owner of a Venice flight school incarcerated in a federal prison in Texas.

Dekkers, 56, is accused of accepting a blue suitcase in Houston on Dec. 2 containing 18.7 kilograms of cocaine and 860 grams of heroin, according to the Houston Chronicle. Dekkers admitted to an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent that he ferried drugs and cash in private aircraft in exchange for payment, the Chronicle’s website reported.

According to a federal complaint filed in Houston, an undercover agent for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was introduced to Dekkers on Halloween by Arturo Astorquiza, who investigators believe is the leader of an international drug trafficking organization, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Dekkers is the former owner of Huffman Aviation in Venice, where 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta and fellow terrorist Marwan al-Shehhi, who each piloted a hijacked jetliner into the World Trade Center, learned to fly.

After the attacks, Dekkers expressed outrage that an intelligence unit of the U.S. government suspected Atta was training in the United States, but never shared it with the FBI or other agencies that could have stopped the terrorists.

Huffman Aviation, located at Venice Municipal Airport, closed six months after the attacks. Dekkers moved to Naples.

“Everywhere I come, they say, ‘Are you not that guy that trained terrorists?’ ” Dekkers said in a 2005 interview with the Herald-Tribune. “I am without a job right now. I have no income anymore. My life was destroyed.”

The Chronicle reported, “His arrest marks the latest chapter in Dekkers’ slide from his pre-9/11 life, when he lived in a tony, Florida subdivision, drove a Dodge Viper and estimated his net worth to be about $12 million.”

Dekkers faces two drug conspiracy counts.