The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has allegedly launched a criminal investigation into defunct virtual carrier OneJet (Pittsburgh International), a motion filed at the US Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh on August 28 said.
On August 10, the FBI met lawyers representing 64 investors who had filed a lawsuit against OneJet's former chief executive and founder Matthew Maguire and other defendants in December 2018, NBC-affiliated television station WPXI reported citing the filing.
OneJet suspended operations on August 29, 2018, when the investors forced it into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The company had USD43 million in liabilities and scarcely any assets.
The two agents were seeking, among other things, the investors' permission to give them the transcript of an interview they had conducted with Maguire, the filing said.
The investors had recently taken part in a Rule 2004 examination of Maguire. Rule 2004 is a deeper examination of a debtor's finances that allows any 'interested person' to require someone else to testify, a relatively rare process used when there appear to be inconsistencies in a debtor's case.
The FBI agents' request was then transferred to the court, where it was filed as a motion before US Bankruptcy Judge Gregory Taddonio, who is overseeing the former airline's involuntary bankruptcy.
The seven-page filing said that the agents had told the lawyers, from the Law Offices of Robert O Lampl in Pittsburgh, “that they were conducting an investigation relating to alleged criminal acts performed by Maguire in connection with his solicitation of investors in OneJet.”
However, there was no further information about the investigation in the filing, and the lawyers, the US Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and Maguire’s lawyers refused to comment.
Meanwhile, the OneJet liquidation process continues at the Pittsburgh bankruptcy court.
In May, Judge Taddonio dismissed all counts against Allegheny County Airport Authority chairman David Minnotte and investment advisor Robert Campbell in the lawsuit filed by the investors, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported on May 27.
But the bulk of the eight-count case remains against Maguire and other defendants, including former Allegheny County Airport Authority member Robert Lewis, the investment firm Boustead Securities, Boustead agent Mel Pirchesky, and the estate of Maguire's father Patrick Maguire, who died in 2019.
