By Altus | AuxBeacon News Contributor

[Editor’s Note: This showed up in our inbox. Thank you for your contribution. Civil Air Patrol Quartz Mountain partner turned out to be a fraud.]

An Altus, Oklahoma based company is showing off its new single-engine airplane that will be sold to flight schools nationwide.

Officials with Quartz Mountain Aerospace say the Model 185-11-E plane is geared to flight training, but is also planned for use by the Civil Air Patrol. Company president John Daniel says it could also be used for border patrol and homeland security.

Daniel says the company will produce 68 of the planes during the 12 months beginning in September and hopes to build 250 the next year and 300 more the year after that.

Quartz Mountain currently has 35 employees and plans to add about 300 more. The company received $2-1/2 million in start-up money from the city of Altus’ economic development fund and $2 million dollars from the Oklahoma Industrial Finance Authority. Investors are also getting state tax credits.

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Update: (2009)

Many politicians carried water for Quartz Mountain Aerospace over the years. The people at the Oklahoma Tax Commission would rewrite the regulations so that all the tax credits that went to Quartz Mountain would comply.

Subsequent legislatures succeeded in getting bills passed that continued the tax credits to Quartz Mountain when it was very obvious that the company was failing. Some of the legislators during this period received significant campaign contributions from the individuals associated with Quartz Mountain, as we have noted.

All of the tax credits that went to Quartz Mountain Aerospace only benefited the owners and the politicians. The list of tax credit embarrassments is long.

In any event, Paul Harold Doughty, a 67-year old Edmond man and former president of the failed First State Bank of Altus was found guilty, by a federal jury, of 10 charges of bank fraud, misapplication of bank funds, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, making a false bank entry, and the unauthorized issuance of a bank loan.

Meanwhile, over a decade ago, Doughty allegedly worked with Republican State Rep. Kevin Calvey, now 49, the same guy who presumably never met a tax credit he didn’t like and who handily won his House District 82 primary last Tuesday as the incumbent.

The City of Altus lost several million dollars in the Quartz Mountain fraud. When the company declared bankruptcy all of the city council members in Altus were voted off.