Jenni Rivera family to file lawsuit against plane owner

Lawyers representing the families of Mexican American singer Jenni Rivera and others who died in a plane crash are expected to file a lawsuit against the operator of the private jet company.

Details on the suit against Starwood Management LLC are expected to be released at a 10:30 a.m. news conference Thursday at the Millennium Biltmore hotel in downtown L.A. In addition to Rivera, the lawsuit will cover the families of her publicist, make-up artist, hairstylist and attorney.

Interviews and documents link the jet to a troubled company and an executive once imprisoned for faking the safety records of planes he bought from the Mexican government and sold to private pilots in the United States.

According to federal aviation records, the Learjet 25 carrying Rivera from a performance in Monterrey, Mexico, was built in 1969 and owned by Las Vegas-based Starwood.

A Starwood executive, Christian E. Esquino Nunez, was accused of conspiring with associates in the 1990s and 2000s to falsify records documenting the history of planes they bought and sold, including tail numbers, inspection stamps and logbooks.

Esquino's "fraudulent business practices ... put the flying public at risk," federal authorities argued in documents obtained by The Times.

"We had a forewarning that this is what he is," Timothy D. Coughlin, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, said. "Essentially, they would manufacture the records ... that would indicate that maintenance was up to date. They would create them out of whole cloth."

The same plane, according to U.S. aviation records, sustained "substantial" damage in 2005 when a fuel imbalance left one wing tip weighing as much as 300 pounds more than the other. The unnamed pilot, despite having logged more than 7,000 hours in the air, lost control while landing in Amarillo, Texas, and struck a runway distance marker. No one was injured.

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