By Associated Press – 11 July ’14
A Wyoming man who paid $1 million to sponsor a search for Amelia Earhart’s missing airplane is asking a federal judge not to dismiss his fraud lawsuit against expedition organizers.
Tim Mellon says the Pennsylvania-based International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery and its executive director actually found Earhart’s plane in 2010. Mellon, son of the late philanthropist Paul Mellon, claims the group kept the discovery secret it could keep seeking funds.
The group denies Mellon’s claims.
A federal judge in Casper is set to consider next week whether to dismiss Mellon’s lawsuit.
Earhart was trying to become the first woman aviator to circle the globe when she and her navigator disappeared in the South Pacific in 1937.
