Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993 TAG: 9305290222
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C2 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium
Joseph Lee Loomis, 20, of St. Charles, Ill., told U.S. Magistrate James E. Bradberry that he would hire an attorney for a preliminary hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newport News.
Raymond Gary Bornman Jr., 19, of Baltimore, appeared in U.S. District Court in New York and probably will be returned to Virginia in time for the Wednesday hearing, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Smythers.
Both men, members of the Coast Guard, remained in custody.
They were accused in criminal complaints filed Friday with the Aug. 12, 1992, derailment of the southbound Amtrak Colonial in Newport News. Seventy-two passengers and the train's engineer were injured.
Evidence found at the scene indicated that a locked siding switch had been broken open and the switch was turned from the main line to the siding, sending the 79 mph train onto a turn designed for a maximum speed of 15 mph.
Loomis was arrested about 1 a.m. Wednesday by Sussex County sheriff's deputies who had been looking for a vehicle seen near a railroad track where tampered switches recently had been discovered.
According to an FBI affidavit, Loomis admitted to the Amtrak derailment and three other incidents of switch tampering. He also implicated Bornman, who was taken into custody Thursday night.
Sussex deputies said they found two damaged train switch locks and an Amtrak sign in Loomis' car, as well as videotapes and audio tapes. One of the voice tapes supposedly is a man describing the approach of a train that he believes is going to derail, but it did not go off the track, the FBI said.
Another FBI affidavit said Bornman verified Loomis' account of the Amtrak tampering incident and said he and Loomis were involved in five incidents of cutting railroad signal wires before the derailment and one afterward.
The FBI also said Loomis told investigators that bolt cutters found at the scene of the Amtrak derailment had been stolen off his Coast Guard vessel. The tool was believed to have been used to cut a lock off the switch.
by CNB