Wyoming Man Has Filed Suit Charging The Group With Fundraising Fraud

A Wyoming man has filed a lawsuit claiming that The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery(TIGHAR) has solicited money from him to search for an airplane he says they have already found.

TIGHAR says that the charges are without merit.

The suit was brought by Timothy Mellon, the son of the late philanthropist Paul Mellon, in federal court in Wyoming last week. He says TIGHAR solicited $1 million from him last year to search for Amelia Earhart's Lockheed, but did not tell him they had found the airplane a year earlier, according to a report from Fox News.

TIGHAR said through its attorney Bill Carter that if they had found the airplane, they would have alerted the media, not kept it a secret. Carter was on the expedition last year that has reportedly turned up some compelling clues as to the whereabouts of the airplane, but it has not yet been found.

TIGHAR executive director Ric Gillespie called the lawsuit "frivolous." "Our group has been totally open with any discovery," he told Fox News.

By Gillespie's calculations, the latest effort to find the plane cost TIGHAR some $350,000.

FMI: http://tighar.org