3 ARE CHARGED IN A MURDER CASE INVOLVING ALIENS AND SEIZING COUNTY GOVERNMENT

June 23, 1996 / July 6, 1996
Source: New York Times
RIVERHEAD, N.Y.-Fearing that space aliens had crashed on Long Island and that the authorities were covering it up, three members of a UFO group plotted to assassinate Suffolk County officials with radioactive materials and seize control of county government, prosecutors said yesterday.

"Yes, this all sounds way-out," District Attorney James M. Catterson said. "But when I read the Unabomber manifesto, some of his ideas were just as bizarre. That's why I take this and the imminent threat to the individuals concerned here very seriously."

At a news conference yesterday after indictments in the case were unsealed, Catterson said the defendants had also planned to burn down the county Republican Party headquarters. He added that the leader of the plot, John J. Ford, believed, "in his own way, that his branch of the Conservative Party, which was no branch except in his own mind, could become the balance of power if he could eliminate the Republican leaders and the party's nominating petitions."

Ford is chairman of the Long Island UFO network, and the other defendants are network members.

"When we first heard this, the idea that someone would attempt to introduce radioactive material into someone's food and someone's living area was so bizarre that there was a human tendency to discount it," Catterson said. "But it didn't take very long to realize that this was some of our worst nightmares come true."

The indictments charged Ford, 47, a retired court officer, and Joseph Mazzuchelli, 42, a convicted burglar, with three counts each of conspiracy to murder, trying to hire others to carry out the plot and illegal possession of radioactive materials. A third suspect, Edward Zabo, 49, a government electrical inspector at Northrop Grumman Corp., was charged with 21 counts including criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment, and violating health laws by possessing radioactive materials. which he is said to have sold to Ford.

Catterson noted that Ford recently sent a newsletter to followers claiming that last year's forest fires in the Long Island Pine Barrens were touched off by the crash of a large UFO. In the same newsletter, Ford accused local and federal agents of trying to cover up the crash by starting fires away from the crash site. He also wrote that Mazzuchelli had learned that government agents were trying to kill him and that Suffolk Police were covering up the plot. To expose this conspiracy against him and his UFO research, Ford hatched his plot to seize control of the Suffolk County government, Catterson said.

Ford and his followers plotted to introduce radioactive radium into the food eaten by John Powell, chairman of the Suffolk County Republican Committee; Fred Towle, a Suffolk legislator, and Anthony Gazzola, a leader of the Conservative Party in Brookhaven and chief investigator in the Brookhaven town attorney's office, Catterson said.

Catterson said evidence showed that the three men had begun to put their plot into action. "We caught it at the beginning." The plot was uncovered during an investigation into illegal gun sales. Martin Thompson, chief of the district attorney's rackets bureau, said investigators taped a conversation between Ford and Mazzuchelli discussing their plot. He said Northrop Grumman and the Defense Department were also investigating.

Ford, who pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, was ordered held on $500,000 bond or $350,000 cash bail. Mazzuchelli, who came to court without a lawyer, was ordered to return on Monday with a court-appointed lawyer. Zabo was ordered to return to court next Friday. Bail was set at $100,000.

"All this convinces me that there is a side to humanity that defies definition," Catterson said, recalling the bombings of the World Trade Center and the federal building in Oklahoma City and the Unabomber. "While we may think of them as kooks and far-outs, the point is that they lead daily lives and are able to get along, but within them they harbor thoughts which seldom, but do surface, so we must be on guard."

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