Hijacker sighted in Cape pre-9-11

W.F. KEOUGH / Press of Atlantic City | January 28 2006

One of the 9-11 hijackers, Marwan Al-Shehhi, sought flying lessons at the Cape May Airport the summer of 2001, according to Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor.

Al-Shehhi, who did not receive the lessons, piloted the hijacked United Flight 175 and crashed the commercial jetliner into the World Trade Center's South Tower at 9:03 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001.

Authorities also believe Al-Shehhi used his ATM card on the Wild-wood Board-walk at least twice that summer, according to Taylor.

“We'd get these terrorism leads from the FBI, and then we'd have to track them down,” Taylor said Friday as he sat behind his desk in the county Prosecutor's Office at Justice Way. “We do know that witnesses saw him in the county.”

The Al-Shehhi-Cape May County connection was only hinted at in the days following Sept. 11. Employees of the airport's restaurant told The Press of Atlantic City that three men of Middle Eastern descent who were speaking Arabic asked about flight training while eating breakfast one morning. The FBI investigated but wouldn't comment at the time. The FBI's office in Linwood did not return calls Friday.

In fact, Al-Shehhi's presence is only becoming known for the strangest reason: a budget tiff.

Taylor wrote freeholders in August asking for 10 more investigators, citing the increasing demands of tracking terrorists, drugs and violent crime since 9-11.

But just last week, freeholders rejected his arguments, giving him a fraction of what he had requested. Worse, members of the all-Republican board questioned Taylor's experience in budgeting and crime fighting.

Taylor, a Democrat appointed by former Gov. James E. McGreevey, fired back Friday.

He released the letter he provided freeholders in August. The letter, he said, documents his need for more investigators to fight terrorists, drug trafficking, sex crimes and fraud.

“They've known since last summer what we've been asking for,” Taylor said Friday.

In the letter, Taylor makes his case by highlighting some strange and — in the Al-Shehhi incident — chilling incidents that have happened in the county.

Taylor, who drafted the letter with Chief of Detectives Jim Rybicki, claims among other things that:

n The annual “Roar to the Shore” bike run to Wildwood attracted more than 600 outlaw bikers last year. Members of the Warlocks, Pagans and Hell's Angels were reported among the more than 100,000 bikers last September. One gang, the Pagans, rented an entire motel. Members of the county's narcotics task force kept the Pagans under surveillance the entire weekend and several drug arrests were made, Taylor said.

n Cape May County Prosecutor's Office investigators have had to track down more than 120 leads involving potential terrorist activity. In one instance, the prosecutor said, a man stopped while driving in Avalon was listed as a radical Islamic extremist on a terrorist watch list. County investigators kept him under surveillance for three weeks.

n In 1993, FBI agents raided a North Wildwood motel and arrested Mataraway Mohammed Said Saleh for his role in that year's bombing of the World Trade Center. Two Boardwalk merchants were convicted of harboring Saleh.

n Organized street gangs, including members of the Bloods, Crips and Black Gangster Disciples have been involved in violent incidents and drug trafficking.

Also, in the letter, Taylor claims that he is fighting an uphill battle tracking the county's 166 registered sex offenders, fighting increasingly organized street gangs and investigating white-collar crimes.

At the August closed-door meeting with freeholders, Taylor pointed out that he has added only two investigators since 2000. He cited a 2000 report from the Division of Criminal Justice, which recommended 15 more investigators were needed.

“Not one single freeholder came up to see me afterwards,” Taylor said.

County Freeholder Director Dan Beyel said Taylor is to blame for not supporting his requests with the proper documents.

“He tells us he needs more investigators,” Beyel said. “In the last two years, we've given him eight new positions, that's more than we've given any other department.”

Beyel dismissed Taylor's August letter as being superficial, saying that it often cited press articles. Beyel said he wants the Division of Criminal Justice report Taylor cited in his letter.

Taylor said that document is confidential.

Taylor said his report also cites state crime statistics involving drugs, violent crimes and overall crime and should be explicit enough.

“Most summer weekdays, we've got 300,000 people in this county,” Taylor said. “That's bigger than Newark.”

The number of drug-dealing and drug-manufacturing arrests grew by 60 percent in 2004. Taylor said bigger drug dealers are trying to ply their trade here.

“We asked the county for $15,000 more this year for narcotics investigations,” Taylor said, “We got zero (increase).”

Cape May County freeholders spend the lowest percentage of their budget on the Prosecutor's Office, according to statewide crime statistics. Under the latest budget, the county plans to spend $3.5 million of its $124 million budget on the Prosecutor's Office, about 2.8 percent.

By comparison, Atlantic County will appropriate a little less than $11 million, or 6.7 percent, of its $163 million budget on its Prosecutor's Office.

County officials are irritated that Taylor is making a public case for more money.

“I don't believe in trying this in the press,” Freeholder Ralph Sheets said. “He needs to sit down with us.”

County officials believe Taylor is pursuing another option: suing them for more funding under what has been called a Bigley action.

“I won't comment on that,” Taylor said.

Sheets, who serves as the liaison to the county Prosecutor's Office, said he hopes that can be avoided.

“I don't think he needs all those people, but I do think he needs some,” Sheets said. “That's why we gave him three.”

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