Pilot: Brooks used DHB jet for personal trips

David Brooks' jet plane operation brought new meaning to the term personal service, according to federal prosecutors.

Brooks had his former Westbury body-armor com-pany pay for flying 12 women - described as being "very attractive" and having Russian accents - from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for a party with Brooks, his brother Jeffrey and two unidentified men, Brooks' former chief pilot testified Tuesday in federal court in Central Islip. The trip on Brooks' $7.5-million Learjet was billed as a business expense, according to company records, the chief pilot, Irving Villalon said.

Villalon also testified that he regularly flew Brooks' family members and friends on Brooks' jet on personal excursions, although the trips also were recorded as business expenses at Brooks' insistence. Federal prosecutors have said the questionable jet flights cost Brooks' company, DHB Industries, more than $1 million.

Among the trips billed to the company that Villalon testified to under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lunger were: frequent flights taking Brooks' daughter Victoria back and forth between Long Island and Atlanta, where she was attending college; flying Brooks' son Andrew to summer camp in upstate New York; flying Brooks' mother, Anne, from Boca Raton, Fla., to New York to attend the $8-million bat mitzvah of Brooks' other daughter, Elizabeth; and flying the whole Brooks family to vacations in California, the Caribbean and Europe.

The personal flights, which were billed to Brooks' company, were among the accusations made against him by prosecutors as part of a wide-ranging scheme to loot DHB. Brooks is charged with having the company illegally billed for almost $5 million in personal expenses and making another $185 million through a stock fraud scheme.

Brooks has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, securities, mail and wire fraud and obstruction. His lawyers have said his contracts with the company called for it to pay for his personal expenses whatever they were. But federal prosecutors have said those contracts were forgeries.

In his opening statement at the trial, federal prosecutor Richard Lunger said that among the other illegal items that Brooks had the company pay for was $1,000-a-month worth of pornography for his son Andrew and other money for prostitutes for himself.