MISSOULA (AP)
Two landowners accused of bribing the former director of the airport authority here to help inflate the value of their land have pleaded guilty to federal charges. Roger D. Hall, 60, and William “B.J.” Lefler, 55, both of Frenchtown, are tentatively scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 27 after pleading guilty to bribery. Both are free pending sentencing. Prosecutors said the two men each paid John P. Seymour, who at the time was director of the Missoula International Airport, $30,000 as part of an agreement in which Seymour inflated the value of their land, which the airport eventually purchased. In March 2000, the land was appraised at about $223,000. The following month, Lefler and Hall rejected an offer from the airport to buy the land for abort $227,000. In the months that followed, prosecutors said Seymour constructed an appraisal spreadsheet that valued the land much higher, and the airport eventually bought the land for more than $603,000. Seymour, who already is serving a 10-year sentence for embezzling, pleaded guilty in May to accepting bribes from the two landowners. Prosecutors said Seymour disguised the bribes he received from Lefler and Hall as proceeds for selling the men 20 head of bison. The airport has never developed the land it bought from the two men.
