Maybe not, but both have been on-screen stars and “Men of Mystery”…

One of the co-conspirators in the USAF contracting fraud case that was mentioned in an earlier post was Ronald B. Powers, also known as “Ronnie.” Ronnie has an interesting past. You could say that he’s been very lucky. For one in 2005 he found himself in possession of Frank Sinatra’s Lear jet and apparently sold it to an “anonymous” owner. This is supposedly the jet that Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu used when they eloped. And we won’t mention the statements from Sinatra’s daughter that her dad was CIA-connected…

Ronnie has also been lucky enough to have a few TV appearances. In 2005 he appeared on Discovery’s “Monster Garage” in the episode where they built a flying car. Discovery even did a short interview with Ronnie. Later in 2010, Ronnie and his crew at Atlanta Air Recovery were featured on “Ultimate Car Build Off” in a contest to build an underwater vehicle.

Back in 1998 Ronnie was listed as a Manager for SunAir, LLC in Scottsdale, Arizona. The managers of SunAir (renamed to Sunrise Airlines) “managed” to bankrupt it in 2000 ((see pages 5, 12ff), and it’s operations were taken over by Wally Hilliard and Dekkers Aviation Group in Venice, Florida. Dekkers Aviation Group is named after Rudi Dekkers who ran the flight school where two of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers trained. The school—Huffman Aviation—was owned by Hilliard. The Dekkers-Hilliard duo have gotten into trouble for the type of cargo they have moved. Hilliard’s Lear jet was busted with 43 pounds of heroin on board in 2000, and in 2012 Dekkers was arrested in Houston on drug trafficking charges.

Another connection between Dekkers and Ronnie is N208BB, a Cessna Caravan 208B that flew for Florida Air (another Dekkers business) in 2001. In November 2001, it’s ownership was transferred to Global Aircraft Leasing, a Ronald B. Powers company. A few years later it went to Worldwide Aviation Service, a company linked to the CIA’s rendition program.

Ronnie is even listed as the incorporator for a former Blackwater subsidiary called Air Quest. Who is this guy? More importantly, who did he work for? Or maybe our “man of mystery” was just lucky and involved in things that coincidentally appear to be covert.

Keep repeating that word: “coincidence, coincidence, coincidence.”