FBI wrecks Ferrari, refuses to pay up, claims sovereign immunity

[AMonger]

FBI Joy Ride Wrecks Ferrari,
DOJ Refuses to Pay Damages
US government refuses to pay
damages for Ferrari F50
destroyed during an FBI joy
ride.
The US Department of Justice
is deploying all of its legal
muscle to avoid paying the
price after an FBI agent
destroyed an exotic car during
a joy ride. After nearly two
years of trying to recover the
money owed by the
government, Motors Insurance
Company filed a lawsuit
against the government
seeking the full $750,000
value of the wrecked 1995
Ferrari F50.
The vehicle originally had been
stolen in 2003 from a Ferrari
dealer in Pennsylvania. Motors
paid the $630,000 insurance
claim, giving the firm title to
the missing exotic. On August
12, 2008, the FBI stumbled
upon the car in Kentucky
during a separate
investigation. The agency held
the vehicle with permission
from Motors. On May 27,
2009, FBI Special Agent
Frederick C. Kingston got
behind the wheel of a 1995
Ferrari F50 with by Assistant
US Attorney J. Hamilton
Thompson in the passenger
seat.
"Just a few seconds after we
left the parking lot, we went
around a curve, and the rear
of the car began sliding,"
Thompson wrote in an email
to Managing Assistant US
Attorney E.J. Walbourn on the
day of the incident. "The
agent tried to regain control,
but the car fishtailed and slid
sideways up onto the curb.
The vehicle came to rest
against a row of bushes and a
small tree. Both myself and
the agent exited of our own
power."
A claims adjuster noted the
frame was bent, rendering the
vehicle -- now worth $750,000
in working condition -- a total
loss. DOJ began stonewalling
when Motors tried to get
information about what
happened. The agency refused
to honor a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request
for any documents regarding
the storage and use of the
vehicle on the day of the
accident. The request was
denied as "an unwarranted
invasion of personal privacy."
Motors filed a separate lawsuit
to force the disclosure of
agency records concerning the
Ferrari.
"Based on the denial of
Motors Insurance Company's
claim, plaintiff anticipates that
DOJ and FBI will claim
immunity against civil liability
under 28 USC Section 2680(c)
and assert that the vehicle was
damaged while in the
detention of law enforcement
authorities," Motors attorney
Richard C. Kraus wrote in an
April 14 lawsuit. "The
information requested under
FOIA and withheld by DOJ and
FBI will be necessary to
determine whether 28 USC
Section 2680(c) applies."
That is precisely what DOJ has
done. The agency insists
sovereign immunity prohibits
the suit, and no negligence
claim can arise because
federal law prohibits claims
against the government for
goods damaged while
detained by law enforcement.
"The exception applies to bar
suit against the United States
and does not permit litigation
over the reasonableness of the
law enforcement officer's
conduct in question," Assistant
Attorney General Tony West
wrote in a May 9 brief to the
court. "The broad
interpretation of the
detention-of-goods exception,
coupled with the necessity
that the court construe the
United States' waiver of
sovereign immunity strictly in
favor of the sovereign, require
a finding that the United
States has not consented to
this sort of suit and plaintiff
has failed to state a claim
under federal law.
Accordingly, the United States
respectfully requests that the
above-captioned action be
dismissed with prejudice."
US District Judge Avern Cohn
on Tuesday set a June 22 date
for final briefs on the
government's motion to
dismiss the suit.

 

[Jack_Berry]

why doesn't ralph nader rail against ferrari's the way he did against corvairs? govt ought to pay up. maybe take the agent out of the field and put him on a desk for a year or two.

 

[scottm4211]

Yeah those Ferraris are notorious for oversteering when exiting parking lots.

 

[Turtle]

That car is a modern-day legend.

================================
THIS is the legend of the Algar Ferrari F50.

It begins with an airline pilot with such a taste for speed that he conned his way into driving the $729,000 roadster, then stole it, leaving a stunned Main Line car salesman behind.

The legend ends years later, after the government recovered the car and an FBI agent ran it into a tree in Kentucky.

Now the wrecked 1996 Ferrari is collecting dust somewhere, object of a legal brawl between the U.S. government and the insurance company that owns the car.

In a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year, Motors Insurance Corp. is asking the feds to pony up $750,000, the amount they say the car is worth now. The insurer also wants to know why the agent and a federal prosecutor were driving the 520-horsepower car in the first place.

The answer, one car-lover said, is simple. It's probably the same reason why pilot Tom H. Baker stole the car from Algar Ferrari/Maserati of Philadelphia in the first place.

"Everybody likes fast cars," said John Nardolilli, a private investigator whom Ferrari hired to help find the F50 after it was stolen.

On Sept. 16, 2003, Baker strolled in to the Algar dealership in Rosemont with a Rolex on his wrist, no driver's license, and iced blood running through his veins.

He had his eyes on the red 1996 Ferrari F50, No. 29 of only 349 built. Baker claimed he was a tech CEO from California who had flown in from Atlanta. He had a limo waiting outside, and was willing to wire the down payment that day - after a test drive.

Soon Baker was behind the wheel of the F50, described by one auto website as "part Batmobile and part ballistic missile." Baker sped away, leaving the Algar salesman on a suburban street in Villanova.

"Everyone was dumbfounded," said Detective Charles Craig of the Lower Merion Police Department. "This guy totally played the part."

Investigators initially believed that Baker had help, with an enclosed flatbed truck waiting nearby. He didn't.

They also figured that the Ferrari, one of only 50 sent to the U.S., would be shipped to black markets in Europe or Asia, packed away in an unassuming crate in the bowels of a freighter. It was not.

In the years that followed, the car's fame grew on the various websites and chat rooms for Ferrari enthusiasts, with everyone guessing who could have pulled off such a heist and where on earth the exotic roadster, basically a Formula One race car in a pretty red dress, would turn up.

It turns out Baker, a divorced father of two, just really liked Ferraris. He kept the car for himself in not-so-exotic, suburban Kentucky.

It wasn't the first time he had stolen a Ferrari either, authorities said. But the Algar job in 2003 was his most daring exploit and the most formidable car he had stolen.

"The dealership is on Lancaster Avenue; it's a very busy road," Craig said. "He raced off at 100 mph over the crest of a hill."

The salesman who watched the F50 speed off on Spring Mill Road in Villanova no longer works for Algar and didn't return requests for comment.

Neither did the dealership's owner nor the other employees listed as witnesses on the police report.

A North Carolina car dealer victimized by Baker said Baker had come in so often in 2003 that they'd become "backslapping buddies."

Steve Barney said that he had cancer at the time and that Baker had claimed to be a radiologist, earnestly staring at his X-rays, inquiring about medications Barney was taking, and seeming genuinely concerned.

"If my 16-year-old daughter needed a ride, I would have put her in the car with him," Barney said.

Baker was interested in a 1989 Ferrari 328 GTS, worth about $55,000. He asked to take it for a test drive, just down to a local gas station and back. Barney consented. He never saw Baker again.

"I was conned. I was conned and he did a beautiful job," he said. "I try to believe in the genuine goodness of people. I won't let that happen again."

Baker had also stolen a 1985 Testarossa from a Long Island dealership in 2003.

Baker sold the Algar Ferrari, which he sometimes even took to car shows, to an emergency-room doctor in Kentucky for $375,000 and another collectible in 2008. When the doctor called Ferrari to check on the engine and vehicle-identification numbers, he learned his new car was the infamous Algar Ferrari and contacted authorities.

The doctor, who asked not to be identified, owned the car for about two bittersweet months and can still recall watching the FBI seize it.

"That was the most sinking feeling in the world," he said. "The car was gone and I didn't have my money back."

But Baker, perhaps out of fear, wired the doctor's money back after the doctor told him there were some issues with the vehicle-identification number. The doctor said Baker, whose former wife is also a doctor, acted "suave and debonair," not like a car thief. He used forged documents to make the sale look legit.

"If you knew Tom Baker, it just boggles your mind. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to go through with stealing an F50. I didn't think he, pardon the term, had the gonads."

Shortly after the failed sale to the doctor, Baker was arrested and charged, the insurance company that owned the car after paying Algar $625,000 was notified, and the F50 was put into U.S. government storage.

But before Baker, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced, something even more dumbfounding happened.

On May 27, 2009, FBI Special Agent Frederick Kingston and Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Hamilton Thompson, the man prosecuting Baker, took the Ferrari out for a drive and rammed a tree, totaling one of the world's rarest cars.

A television report at the time said Kingston and Thompson were moving the car to a warehouse and lost control of the vehicle. Police told the television station that Kingston was going only 40 mph and that a tire may have blown out, explanations that elicit snarky comments on Ferrari websites.

"Why is it I get the feeling this was a case of 'Now it's my turn'? This was the last joyride, not the first," a commenter posted on Ferrarichat.com.

A few months after the F50 was wrecked, Baker was sentenced to eight months in prison but was allowed to serve just two days per week so he could " make his scheduled flight from Lexington, Ky., to Orlando, Fla., for purposes of his employment."

Baker could not be reached for comment, but his attorney, R. Tucker Richardson, said his client had no criminal record beyond the sports-car thefts.

"I don't know what drove this man to do this. It was out of character. It was a weird case," Richardson said. "He kept it in a warehouse and got it out and drove it every once in a blue moon."

The Department of Justice denied a claim for $750,000 filed by Motors Insurance Corp., claiming the accident occurred "while the Ferrari was being detained by the FBI."

Earlier this year, the company filed a lawsuit against the DOJ and the FBI in an attempt to recoup its losses and to get a valid explanation for why the car was being driven.

An attorney for Motors Insurance Corp. said he didn't know where the car is and declined to comment further. Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said he didn't know where it was either.

"I know it's not in my garage," he said.

On Sept. 16, 2003, the F50 was on the Main Line, at a dealership in Rosemont, ready to eat up the road for a buyer with a fat bankroll. Then Tom Baker walked in, and it was gone.

Now it will probably never be driven again, unless a person who really likes fast cars is willing to fix it.

"It really was one hеll of a car," Richardson said. "One hеll of a car."

 

[jaminjim]

Yeah those Ferraris are notorious for oversteering when exiting parking lots.

Are you referring to the Corvair or the Ferrari? The Ferrari was in a curve when they lost control.

 

[xmudman]

What a fun post to read!

I grew up in that area, have been to the dealership in question to gawk at the shiny red cars several times, and I can imagine the fun Mr. Baker must have had on the twisty two-lanes between Rosemont and the PA turnpike entrance he would eventually have used to head to Kentucky. He plainly had nerve by the ton; I wonder where he found the restraint not to wind the car out on his way home and risk getting caught.

Our FBI friends, on the other hand, must've forgotten that there's a big difference between a Ferrari F50 and the Crown Vic Interceptors they usually drive

 

[AMonger]

Wait a minute...am I to understand that this guy stole THREE Ferraris and is now sentenced to only 8 months of non-continuous confinement? The FBI agent and prosecutor stole the vehicle from government storage for a joyride; THEIR sentence should be more than 8 months, and they only stole ONE!