The dismissal of two forfeiture cases that stemmed from what is now a nearly two-year-old investigation into the Grand Junction Regional Airport included provisions that left sealed the evidence that sparked the investigation.
The agreement between the owners of two seized vehicles and the U.S. Attorney’s Office includes a provision that the complaint under which the vehicles were seized in 2014 and the affidavit on which it was based remain off limits to public inspection.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver declined to comment on whether an investigation is continuing.
The two men whose vehicles were returned agreed to take no further action against the federal government and that they would pay their own costs and attorney fees.
The FBI seized the GMC Denali pickups owned by Denny Granum, a former member of the Airport Authority, and Travis Vallin, a principal in Jviation, a company that did business with the airport, last year.
Both men denied wrongdoing.
The seizures took place soon after the FBI seized a similar truck owned by Rex Tippetts, the former director of aviation at the airport.
The airport had purchased the diesel-fueled vehicles, kept them for a contracted period and then sold them with low mileage in an effort to reduce overall costs. That practice has since been discontinued and the airport last year bought a gasoline-powered pickup for airport work.
Tippetts’ truck was to have been returned to him, but a creditor who had been tipped off took possession of it before he could do so.
The episode surrounding the trucks did little to clear up the questions still bedeviling the Airport Authority. The airport more than a year ago ceased construction on an administration building that was begun under Tippetts and suspended when the FBI investigation raised questions about how the airport gained federal approval and funding for the project.
The airport also has been without a permanent staff chief since Tippetts was fired in December 2013, a month after the Nov. 6, 2013, raid on airport offices. No arrests have been made.
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