Marine found guilty in Italian cable car trial

The US Marine pilot, Capt Richard Ashby, was found guilty by a military jury yesterday of conspiring to obstruct criminal investigations…

The US Marine pilot, Capt Richard Ashby, was found guilty by a military jury yesterday of conspiring to obstruct criminal investigations into a cable car accident that killed 20 people in the Italian Alps last year.

Flanked by his attorneys, Ashby stood at attention and showed no outward emotion as a seven-man jury handed down its verdict in a military courtroom at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

"This jury finds you guilty of all charges," the jury president, a Marine colonel, said. The jury had deliberated for about four hours.

Ashby, 32, faces up to 10 years in a military prison as a result of the guilty verdict. His sentence will be determined by the jury following a sentencing hearing in the case.

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During a separate court-martial in March, Ashby was found not guilty of more serious charges of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide in the accident.

Ashby was at the controls of an EA-6B Prowler when it dove under lift cables strung across a valley in the Italian Alps. The jet's wing and tail severed two lift cables, killing everyone in the gondola, which plunged about 400 feet to the icy slopes below. The accident sparked calls in Italy to close Italian military bases to the US military.

Prosecutors alleged that Ashby and the navigator, Capt Joseph Schweitzer, took a personal videotape from the cockpit of their damaged jet - leaving a blank one behind - to keep it out of the hands of US and Italian authorities.

"If that tape did nothing more than answer one simple question - were they filming in the valley where 20 people died, yes or no - it was evidence. It's that simple," prosecutor Maj Daniel Daugherty said in closing arguments on Thursday.

Schweitzer last month pleaded guilty to charges of conduct unbecoming an officer for conspiring to conceal the videotape from investigators. He admitted to tossing the tape into a bonfire days after the accident.

In closing arguments, defence attorney Mr Frank Spinner said Ashby and Schweitzer were shaken by the accident and emergency landing, and had no intention of obstructing criminal investigations when they took the tape.

A Michigan jury yesterday ordered producers of the Jenny Jones talk show to pay $25 million, finding them negligent after a guest murdered a gay man who revealed fantasies about him on the show.