Next Sidebar in Ferrari Saga Is Slated to Start

• ‘Homeland Security’ Angle in Spotlight

BY ANNE SOBLE

The man alleged to have created a paratransit agency that was subsequently connected to the spectacular 2006 Enzo Ferrari crash in Malibu is scheduled to appear in Alhambra Superior Court on May 15 to answer misdemeanor charges of unlawful use of a badge.

Yosuf Maiwandi, 39, of Bradbury, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges related to the alleged 2005 founding of the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority, in a Monrovia automotive repair shop, that became linked to the crash of a $1.5 million Enzo Ferrari in Malibu in February, 2006, that became an international mass media whirlwind.

The SGVTA was set up as a private nonprofit entity with five buses to provide free paratransit service for the elderly, infirm and disabled in Monrovia and Sierra Madre.

Founders of the group were quoted at the time of the Enzo crash as corroborating reports that the paratransit agency had its own police department, complete with a chief of police, weapons, badges and mission statement.

In one of the SGVTA documents formerly posted on the agency’s web site, it stated that its quasi-police efforts were necessary because “mass transit is faced with perhaps its greatest challenge ever—the post 9/11 era.”

Sources cited at the time of the Enzo crash indicated that former Swedish video game executive Bo Stefan Eriksson, 45, since adjudicated to be the driver of the totalled super-car and sentenced to three years jail time for grand theft charges related to the crash, supposedly brought video monitoring skills to the organization.

A major unanswered piece of the crash scene puzzle concerns the identity of the individuals who apparently facilitated Eriksson’s departure from the accident scene without his being arrested, or even booked, as it appears that the SGVTA’s five board members were issued police badges.

Among the issues that may come to light in next month’s trial are the bureaucratic procedures used for creating quasi-law enforcement agencies such as this paratransit agency.

The possibility that a small shuttle service could seek government status and funding, even if it was run out of an auto repair shop and had its after-hours telephone calls answered by an out-of-state answering service, can also shed light on the workings of so-called homeland security legislation and a myriad of civil rights and other civil liberties issues in what appears to be a climate of growing paranoia.

How the transit agency became linked to the crash of the rare Enzo and the role of its representatives at the accident scene where Eriksson was reportedly described as “a deputy commissioner with the agency’s anti-terrorism unit” is also expected to be addressed.

Moments after the crash occurred, two unidentified men showed up at the Pacific Coast Highway accident scene and flashed badges that were sufficiently “official” looking to convince the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies at the scene that they were authentic law enforcement agents.

Assuming that the more obvious questions are answered at next month’s trial, most Ferrari crash saga observers expect there will be another new series of questions of increased complexity that will start the inquiry cycle all over again.