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Jun. 5—The owner of a company behind a proposed venture at the Reading Regional Airport has filed a federal lawsuit alleging several officials and rival business owners conspired to thwart his plans while enriching themselves.

James Dastra, the owner of Coral Aviation, filed the lawsuit on May 15. It names more than 20 defendants, including the Reading Regional Airport Authority, Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach, business owners Andrew Muller and Peter Knight, and several airport officials.

The lawsuit claims the defendants used their positions to curtail a $12 million development plan Dastra had at the Bern Township airfield in favor of their own deal that creates a monopoly and gives the county a stranglehold over the airport. In so doing, the lawsuit alleges, the parties breached their collective contractual obligations and violated antitrust laws.

The lawsuit also claims Leinbach, who serves as authority chairman, conspired with Muller and Knight through "illicit means and backroom pay-to-play methods" to purchase their businesses — Reading Jet Center and Millennium Aviation — as a reward for campaign contributions.

Finally, the lawsuit claims the defendants defamed Dastra.

Dastra, in his lawsuit, asks for compensatory damages for physical, emotional, economic and other damages, as well as an injunction halting the sale of Reading Jet Center and Millennium Aviation. He is asking the court for a jury trial.

Officials from the airport authority, including Leinbach, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

"I have not seen or received anything," Leinbach said last week. "The airport authority will schedule an executive session to review. Any comment prior to that would not be appropriate."

The authority's solicitor, Edwin Stock, likewise declined to comment.

"Due to the fact that the reference lawsuit is pending litigation, the Reading Regional Airport Authority has no comment," he said.

Knight also declined to comment, citing the pending nature of the litigation. Muller could not immediately be reached.

Coral Aviation project

A previous version of the authority granted approval last July for Coral to build on 10 acres the company would lease. The project was estimated to cost $12 million and include constructing a fuel farm, a 50,000-square-foot hangar and around 20,000 square feet of office space.

Dastra said the project would provide hangar space and fueling services to Quest Diagnostics, with hopes of future expansion. Quest bases a fleet of airplanes at the airport that transport human blood and tissue samples from their offices to laboratories for various medical tests.

Quest is by far the top operator at the airport in terms of the number of flights.

At that July meeting, authority member Randy Heck made a motion to grant approval. It was seconded by Chairman Michael Setley and passed by a 5-1 vote. Craig Lutz, the assistant chairman of the authority, was the lone member to vote against the proposal.

Heck said at the time that the move was important in its mission to keep Quest at the airport.

Authority member Pamela Shupp agreed, adding that the Coral project would help make the airport a more attractive location for any and all businesses looking to establish, expand or relocate.

But not everyone at the airfield was pleased with the decision.

Two existing full service fixed-based operators at the airport — Reading Jet Center and Millennium Aviation — had claimed the project would be detrimental to their already stressed financial situations.

They also took issue with the way the Coral proposal process had progressed without several pertinent documents like an official business plan or a statement of financial stability being available for the public review.

County takes over

In October, Setley, Lutz, Shupp, Heck and fellow members Andrew Muller, Raymond Blydenburgh and Betsy Carlisle all simultaneously tendered their resignations.

The mass resignation was the culmination of an effort to shift control of the airport to the county. The authority board had expressed interest in having the county take over operations of the facility as far back as spring 2021, citing mounting financial stress as the authority struggled to make payments on debt that dates back two decades.

The county took over running the airport, with the authority board now made up of the three county commissioners, the chief operations officer and the director of community and economic development.

In the months that followed the takeover, Dastra changed his development plan. In January he informed the board that while much of the project would remain the same, he would no longer be seeking the 10 acres at the airfield.

Instead, the buildings and fuel farm would be built on an existing five-acre parcel that Coral already leases.

Negotiations terminated

At a special meeting in February, the airport authority announced its plans to become the sole provider of fuel and related services at the airfield and officially terminated development negotiations with Coral.

The discussion of the move at the special meeting consisted only of Stock, the authority solicitor, reading a letter that was to be sent to Coral informing it of the decision and Berks County Chief Operations Officer Kevin Barnhardt reading a motion to move ahead with the termination that the board voted unanimously to approve.

"The Reading Regional Airport Authority has been presented with an opportunity to exercise its proprietary exclusive rights to own and operate a sole fixed base operator at the airport," Barnhardt said. "Since the authority intends to pursue this opportunity, the current discussions being held between the authority and Coral Aviation regarding, among other things, the construction of hangars and the establishment of a fixed base operator shall be terminated."

The decision effectively ended Dastra's development plans.

In the weeks that followed, the authority began making moves to buy the two existing fixed based operators at the airfield — Reading Jet Center and Millennium Aviation.

The board voted unanimously to hire Houston-based JLL Valuation & Advisory Services to estimate the worth of the two existing businesses and York-based BBP Solutions to study the operational expenses associated with buying the assets of the two.

Leinbach said the firms would be tasked with providing information on components that will help the board decide if it makes financial sense to exercise its proprietary exclusive right to be the sole fixed base operator at the airfield.

The authority announced at an April 4 meeting that it had crafted proposals to purchase the assets of the two businesses at the airfield. The authority approved the proposed agreement of sale for Reading Jet Center for $9.2 million and for Millennium for $4.7 million.

The authority and the companies were given 90 days to consider the proposal. Authority members said its final approval — and the final sale prices — will be contingent on securing financing and on completion of the studies being done on the potential sale.

Allegations

The lawsuit alleges the termination of Dastra's plans and the sale of the two existing FBOs are part of a conspiracy.

It claims the seeds of the conspiracy were planted years ago, citing previous disputes between Dastra and Muller that included litigation that alleged Muller was allowing his personal interests to impact his work on the authority.

The lawsuit says Muller — knowing it would hurt his business as well as Millennium Aviation — intentionally slowed down the progress of Dastra's project prior to it being approved in an attempt to buy time to find a way to derail it.

Even after the plan was approved, the lawsuit claims, Muller and Knight continued to fight it. That included Muller and the rest of the authority board telling Dastra that he should eliminate the fuel-selling portion of his plan because it would mean he'd face fewer obstacles.

Dastra refused to alter his plan. So, the lawsuit alleges, a new scheme was hatched.

With the county takeover of the authority, the lawsuit claims, Muller and Knight found an opening to thwart Dastra's plans and cash out their own struggling businesses. Their plan entailed getting the county to take over as the sole fuel provider at the airport and buying them out to make it happen.

The suit calls the plan a "poorly-veiled government bailout."

The lawsuit alleges that Muller and Knight put their plan into action by cutting a deal with Leinbach in which they would make contributions to his political campaign. According to election records, the two donated a combined total of $9,500 to Leinbach's political campaign between October 2021 and December 2022.

A total of $4,500 was donated after Leinbach took over as chairman of the airport authority.

The lawsuit says the scheme to have the county take over fuel sales at the airport wasn't immediately apparent when the county took over control of the authority. In fact, less than two weeks before negotiations were terminated it appeared Dastra's plans were still on track.

The lawsuit says that on Feb. 15 a conference call was held with Dastra, his attorney and officials from the authority. During that call authority officials indicated that the bulk of the deal was in place and all outstanding issues were mere formalities, the suits says.

Twelve days later, on Feb. 27, the authority terminated negotiations and announced that it would start the process of becoming the sole fuel provider at the airport.

The lawsuit also claims that several officials from the airport defamed Dastra, in particular in discussions with officials from Quest.