Part 60, page 173

Transcript

The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.

An FBI expert, in com- paring documents, testi- fied that photocopies of three $20 bills, supposedly from the hijack loot, that Lewis and Murphy showed to Flemin to prove that he was really interviewing "Cooper" were bogus.

In interviews with Fleming, filmed on a Pu- get Sound beach and taped in a motel room, Murphy said he had planned the hijacking for 14 months. He said his problem was that "I couldn't spend the money after I got it." The film was shown to the jury last Wednesday.

Fleming testified that, after the interviews, he, Murphy and Lewis drove to a rural area near the hamlet of La Center in southwest Washington. Murphy pointed out where he supposedly land- ed after parachuting from the 727 and where he got in his car and drove home. He said he was guided to his car by radio transmit- ters that he had placed in the vehicle and at two nearby locations and which he monitored with a walkie-talkie during and after the jump.

Fleming said that News- week had a cover story written and a sketch drawn to illustrate it, based on his interviews with "Cooper." He said a week before the article was to run, an attorney for a book publishing compa- ny threatened to tell the FBI about the interviews. He had been discussing publication of the story with the book firm, Har- per & Row.

Fleming said he then in- structed an attorney friend to give all the infor- mation about the contacts with Murphy and Lewis to the FBI. An investigation turned up many discre- pancies in what the tw-

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men had told Fleming, in- cluding the fact that Mur- phy had never been em- ployed by Boeing. The two men were arrested on June 3.

Palevsky described his occupation in his testimo- ny as "an entrepreneur."

He said he had trusted Fleming's judgment enough to put up the $35,- 000, knowing him to be a "very reputable journa- list."

"I wasn't totally con- vinced but certainly thought there was a prob- ability that he had access to D. B. Cooper," Palevsky said.

He added: "I wanted to have nothing to do with the entire transaction. It was Karl's project. I want- ed to avoid as far as possi- ble any involvement."

On the witness stand last Thursday, Fleming dis- closed that the weekly newspaper LA, which he and Palevsky started six months ago with Palev- sky's support, had sus- pended publication. In making the disclosure, Fleming was overcome with emotion. U.S. Dist. Judge Walter McGovern called a recess to enable him to regain his compo- sure.

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DB Cooper-24851