Hotel Guard Admits to Lying About Pilot Radio

NEW YORK —  A hotel security guard pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying when he told FBI agents he found an aviation radio in the locked safe of a room occupied by an Egyptian graduate student that was near the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

The guard, Ronald Ferry, 48, did not explain why he lied to authorities. But his statements were a key factor leading to the student’s monthlong confinement as investigators tried to determine who owned the radio, which was capable of communicating with the terrorists on the planes that crashed into the twin towers.

In January, prosecutors dropped charges against Abdallah Higazy, 30, a computer science student at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn after a pilot came forward to say the radio belonged to him.

The pilot, who prosecutors said had no connection with Higazy, also had stayed in the Millennium Hilton hotel at the time of the terrorist attack.

During his appearance in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, Ferry admitted the radio wasn’t found in the safe, as he had claimed.

“I knew it was found on a desk in that room by a co-worker of mine,” he said.

The radio was discovered when hotel employees the conducted an inventory of property that guests left behind when they evacuated the hotel after the attack.

The pilot, who was not identified, occupied a room a floor below Higazy’s room, which was on the 51st floor. It was unclear how the radio ended up in Higazy’s room.

“This type of conduct can have serious repercussions for innocent individuals implicated by false information,” U.S. Atty. James B. Comey said of Ferry’s false statements to FBI agents. “It also unnecessarily drains important law enforcement resources that are dedicated to investigating the Sept. 11 attacks and disrupting future acts of terrorism.”

When Higazy returned to the hotel Dec. 17 to retrieve his belongings, FBI agents showed him the radio, which he denied was his.

Higazy, who was placed at the hotel by the Institute of International Education while he was looking for permanent housing, said aside from the hotel’s housekeeping staff, he never had visitors to his room.

Higazy was detained as a material witness Dec. 17 and later charged with lying to the FBI.

U.S. District Judge George Daniels told Ferry he could face five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for making the false statements when he is sentenced May 30.

Outside of court, Anthony Ricco, one of Ferry’s lawyers, said the plea agreement did not stipulate that his client would cooperate with authorities.

The U.S. attorney’s office said investigation is continuing and other employees of the hotel are being questioned.