CHOPPER BIGS ARE TROUBLE
Death-crash firm duo's shady post
The chief pilot for the company whose helicopter crashed Sunday in the East River — killing all five passengers — spent more than eight years behind bars for repeatedly stabbing a woman during a Long Island robbery, The Post has learned.
Paul Tramontana admitted covering his victim’s face with a pillow and plunging a knife through it during the bloody, 1982 assault in Brentwood — which was spurred by his cocaine habit, court records show.
“Whether I penetrated the pillow or not I can’t say, but I did try to stab her through the pillow,” Tramontana admitted while pleading guilty to seconddegree attempted murder.
Meanwhile, the chairman and CEO of Liberty Helicopters, Drew Schaefer, 56, has his own skeletons in the closet: alleged stock scams that got him barred from the securities industry, records show.
While CEO of since-shuttered Americorp Securities, Schaefer solicited aftermarket orders ahead of a 1994 initial public offering and delayed purchase orders so he could sell shares to his customers at higher prices, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged.
He agreed to fork over $200,000 in a 1997 deal with the SEC that ended his Wall Street career.
New Jersey court records show that Schaefer also was accused in 2003 by partner Alvin Trenk of diverting corporate assets of Liberty’s parent company, Sightseeing Tours of America, for his own use. The case was settled.
Liberty has come under fire since Sunday night’s tragedy, in which the passengers drowned.
The accident followed at least four others involving Liberty helicopters, including a midair collision with a private plane that killed nine people in 2009.
Tramontana, 56, who was paroled in 1990, was at the controls when a charter flight crashed in New Jersey in heavy fog in 2001. Everyone survived.
His criminal record didn’t keep him from obtaining a pilot’s license because the FAA disqualifies only ex-cons whose convictions involve drugs or alcohol.
But during Tramontana’s sentencing, his defense lawyer said the motive for his vicious robbery of the late Helen Ettl was “monetary problems” that arose while he was “involved with cocaine use and abuse.”
Tramontana and accomplice Michael Basile scammed their way into Ettl’s home believing “there was a sum of $40,000 in there at the time,” Legal Aid lawyer Robert Kenny said.
Ettl’s husband, the late Albert Ettl, told the judge that his wife suffered horribly during and after the April 14, 1982, attack.
“She will never forget these men who dragged her from room to room, screaming at her to hand over her money, and re- peatedly stabbing her,” Albert wrote in opposing any leniency.
A spokesman for Liberty said, “The SEC matter was a civil administrative matter that was resolved in 1998, 20 years ago. The internal civil corporate matter was resolved 10 years ago.”