A 9mm Beretta clip is dropped at the scene, no other car was being raced and the Swedish owner of the million-dollar Ferrari will be charged with a misdemeanor hit and run, plus drunk and reckless driving, if blood tests place him behind wheel.
By Hans Laetz / Special to The Malibu Times
The discovery of a 9mm Beretta handgun clip at the Ferrari crash site last week on Pacific Coast Highway and Decker Canyon Road has added the possibility that persons involved in the accident were carrying weapons at the time of the accident. Also, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies revealed Tuesday that they’ve known for a week that there was no Mercedes, no car race and no mysterious accomplice named “Dietrich” who ran into the hills following the accident, as maintained by former Swedish game company mogul Stefan Eriksson, the owner of the Ferrari that was severed in half in the crash. Sheriff’s Deputies investigating the accident said they expect to file misdemeanor charges against Eriksson if blood tests put him in the driver’s seat of the exotic show car.
Sgt. Philip Brooks of the Lost Hills-Malibu Sheriff’s Station said the gun magazine was found by a witness after he stopped his car at the crash scene Feb. 21, and let a person at the scene use their cellphone inside the witness’ car. Brooks said the person who used the phone got out of the witness’ car, but left behind the clip, which had bullets in it.
Brooks said he could not yet reveal who the person who dropped the clip was, but said the gun magazine is related to the crash.
“All will become apparent after we talk to Mr. Eriksson,” Brooks said Tuesday.
At the crash site, Eriksson claimed to work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and authorities said Tuesday that unknown persons attempted to assert jurisdiction at the crash site by flashing some sort of official identification.
Meanwhile, an attorney representing the 44-year-old Bel-Air resident offered to make his client available for questioning on Thursday.
“He’s decided it’s time to come clean and talk to the cops,” Brooks said.
For two hours after the accident, Eriksson and another man were standing next to the two-seater’s wreckage, making frequent cellular calls and talking with other people. Neither was in custody, and both left the scene after two hours in the company of persons unknown.
During that time, Eriksson and the other man blamed a mysterious second racecar for the accident. The man standing with Eriksson, who authorities will not publicly identify, said he was dropped off at the scene before deputies arrived by the person allegedly racing a Mercedes SLR.
Deputies have now confirmed that the Mercedes story was not true and that an eyewitness saw the Enzo, unaccompanied by any other car, speed past his car on PCH at Trancas.
Brooks said he left the false story circulating in newspapers around the world to see how Eriksson would react.
“Every wrong fact out there makes this guy want to come to me even more,” Brooks said Tuesday.
Investigators have reconstructed the crash using lasers and other high-tech measuring devices. Their computer program will analyze the laser measurements and produce an animation depicting the car bottoming out at 162 mph as it crested the small rise at Decker Canyon Road, Brooks said.
“It will take the locations of all the gouge marks and skids, and then show a driver’s eye view as it went up the small hill, split the power pole and then blasted into pieces as the engine and passenger compartment spiraled down the street,” Brooks said. “The TV stations will love it, but we’re doing it to fully analyze the crash.”
Brooks said deputies would ask Eriksson to supply a blood sample to be used to compare to a blood smear left on the driver’s side air bag in the $1.2 million Enzo Ferrari that was found smashed at the end of 400 yards of skid marks, downed power lines and wreckage at dawn last week.
Eriksson was photographed by The Malibu Times at the crash scene with blood on his mouth, and both air bags had deployed in the Ferrari. However, deputies said only the driver-side air bag had blood on it.
Deputies suspected Eriksson was driving his car, and measured his blood alcohol content at .09 percent after the crash, just above the threshold level of the .08 percent legal limit for driving and drinking.
Brooks said the county will make thousands of dollars worth of DNA tests and other high-tech reconstruction “for a crime that, at the most, will get the driver a drunk driving conviction, and probably a first-time fine of a thousand dollars or so.”
Eriksson reportedly was convicted of racketeering and counterfeiting in his native Uppsala, Sweden in 1995, and was known as “Fat Steven” to his cohorts in the Uppsala Mafia, according to the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet. The newspaper reported that Eriksson might have lied to U.S. immigration officers to gain entry into this nation following a string of convictions for serious racketeering charges in Uppsala in 1995.
Eriksson served prison time but then dropped from public sight, according to the Swedish newspaper. Several years later he surfaced as chief technology officer at a British handheld game device company called Gizmondo, which British newspapers say was looted by executives of millions of dollars in inflated salaries, perks like Formula One racecars and other unearned benefits.
Gizmondo manufactured a handheld game device that was launched last year at a gala party on Regent Street in Central London that featured an appearance by the Enzo Ferrari and a performance by the rock musician Sting. The high tech British-American electronic game manufacturing company was liquidated in Britain two weeks ago after what newspapers there call a spectacular collapse.
Brooks said he could not confirm reports that the exotic sports car was in the process of being repossessed by The Bank of Scotland at the time of the crash.
“They told me that on the phone, but I have not heard back from them and until I get a notice of repossession they can’t have any of the pieces back.”
The Enzo could not pass U.S. or California smog, safety or bumper standards and therefore could not be driven on public highways or issued license plates, authorities said.
Brooks said small pieces of the wreckage are being offered for sale on Ebay, including purported Enzo rear-view mirrors.
“I have both of the real ones,” Brooks said.
“One man out there picked up a piece of the carbon-fiber passenger cage, and said, ‘I may not own a Ferrari Enzo, but I have a piece of one,'” Brooks said, shaking his head.