THOMPSON ADVISER HAS CRIMINAL PAST

Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been
crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet
lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal
record for drug dealing.

Thompson selected the businessman, Philip Martin, to raise seed money
for his White House bid. Martin is one of four campaign co-chairmen
and the head of a group called the "first day founders." Campaign
aides jokingly began to refer to Martin, who has been friends with
Thompson since the early 1990s, as the head of "Thompson's Airforce."

Thompson's frequent flights aboard Martin's twin-engine Cessna 560
Citation have saved him more than $100,000, because until the law
changed in September, campaign-finance rules allowed presidential
candidates to reimburse private jet owners for just a fraction of the
true cost of flights.

Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana
in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his
probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and
with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and
conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and
conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth
of the drug, and was continued on probation.

Thompson's campaign said the candidate was not aware of the multiple
criminal cases, for which Martin served no jail time. All are
described in public court records.

Karen Hanretty, Thompson's deputy communications director, said
yesterday that "Senator Thompson was unaware of the information until
this afternoon. Phil Martin has been a friend of the senator since
the mid-1990s and remains so today." Thompson communications director
Todd Harris added that Martin was not subjected to the campaign's
standard vetting process because "he's a longtime friend."

"There's not a campaign in the world that has the ability to research
every one of its supporters going back more than 20 years," Harris said.

Martin could not be reached in the past week, and lawyers for him in
Tennessee and Florida declined to comment on the criminal cases.
Hanretty said she forwarded detailed questions from The Washington
Post to Martin yesterday afternoon.

Martin, 49, is one of several top political fundraisers with a
criminal past to gain access this year to a presidential contender.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton decided in September to return more than
$800,000 raised by Norman Hsu, one of her top bundlers, after
newspapers disclosed that he had been convicted of fraud and had an
outstanding warrant for his arrest.

Martin has been more than just a key fundraiser to Thompson, though.
The use of his plane eases a major logistical burden stemming from
the intense demands on presidential candidates this year for
appearances in more than 20 states holding early primaries. It also
may have saved the campaign at least $120,000, given that Federal
Election Commission rules allowed Thompson to reimburse Martin for
the use of the private jet at the commercial ticket rate until
Congress changed the rules in September.

Thompson has reported reimbursing Martin $102,330, without specifying
precisely where he flew on the plane, or when. But a comparison of
flight records for the plane, kept by the tracking firm FlightAware,
and news accounts of Thompson's campaign appearances this year shows
that since June the plane has made more than two dozen stops that
coincided with Thompson campaign events.

The destinations included a GOP fundraising luncheon in South
Carolina, rallies in Houston and Dallas, a leadership conference in
Indianapolis, and the Minnesota State Fair. The most recent trip was
on Thursday, when the plane left Las Vegas with Thompson on board,
bound for Washington, where Thompson has long been an industry lobbyist.

The Web site JetTrip.com estimates that the hourly charter rate for
use of a plane similar to Martin's would be between $1,500 and
$2,400, which means these flights would normally cost at least
$220,000, more than double what Thompson paid.

Several other presidential candidates use private aircraft supplied
by key political supporters. Former New York mayor Rudolph W.
Giuliani, for instance, has paid $279,000 to Elliott Asset
Management, a firm headed by campaign adviser and New York financier
Paul Singer, to reimburse the firm for using an airplane. Democrat
John Edwards has paid $628,052 to longtime backer Fred Baron, a
Dallas lawyer, for the use of his plane.

Martin's criminal history has not previously surfaced in news
accounts mentioning his role as a Thompson supporter. The Chattanooga
Times Free Press referred to him recently as Thompson's "mystery man."

Archived Florida court records provide details of the various cases
against Martin, including alleged sports-betting activity, a cocaine
deal he arranged with an undercover sheriff's deputy and carried out
through a middleman, and the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana to an
undercover detective for $3,400. Martin produced the marijuana from
the trunk of his 1973 Cadillac as he and the detective were parked
behind a Tampa area department store, according to the arrest report.

According to court records, close friends and an ex-wife, Martin
arrived in Tennessee from Tampa about 1985 while serving probation
for his various offenses. He set up a series of businesses, starting
with the Puzzle's Pizza parlor. He opened a hardware store, and
friends say he began trying to recruit business partners for more
ambitious real estate ventures.

The fledgling developer also started to get involved in local and
state politics. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), a close friend of both
Martin and Thompson who was then a commercial real estate broker in
Chattanooga, said he and Martin met through their work and became
friends because of a mutual interest in Republican politics. "He
always has been a mover and shaker from the first time I knew him," Wamp said.

He and others said Martin, a gregarious and charismatic man, was a
natural in the world of political cocktail chatter and back-slapping.
Martin's first wife, Renee Whitfield, recalled that he and Wamp
campaigned together for a GOP gubernatorial candidate in 1994. "We
rode the bus to a county fair, all of us wearing our [campaign]
T-shirts and passing out literature," Whitfield recalled.

Martin began spending significant time with Thompson at fundraisers
for Wamp at a farm owned by one of Martin's close friends, Delwin L.
Huggins, according to Huggins's ex-wife, Badia McKee. After making
small donations to Wamp in 1992 and 1993, he sent his first
substantial check -- $1,000 -- to Thompson in 1994.

Another $4,000 followed for Thompson's 1994 Senate bid, during which
a private jet owned by a wealthy Tennessee businessman, Steven A.
McKenzie, flew Martin, Thompson and others around the state,
according to a source with direct knowledge of the trips. McKenzie
did not respond to multiple telephone calls.

Martin "was always wanting to help candidates," Wamp said. "I assume
through 10 years of political involvement, when Fred came on the
scene, they immediately saw eye to eye." Martin and Thompson both
stand well over 6 feet and have outsize personalities. "Hail fellows
well met," is how David Copeland, a longtime local legislator from
the Chattanooga area, described Martin and Thompson. "They just stood
out, and people gravitated to them."

From 1992 to 2002, Martin donated more than $75,000 to GOP
candidates and committees, according to FEC records. By 2000, he had
become a major political player in Tennessee Republican circles.

For much of his work, Martin partnered with Huggins, whose in-laws
played a key role in the Chattanooga area's commercial life. McKee is
the daughter of one of the area's wealthiest residents, Ellsworth
McKee. The family founded McKee Foods in 1934, and Badia McKee's
sister Debbie was the namesake of its most successful product, Little
Debbie snack cakes.

Wamp said the McKees employed a good portion of the Chattanooga area,
and Ellsworth McKee has served as a sort of town father. As Ellsworth
McKee's son-in-law, Huggins was an important early contact for
Martin, Wamp said.

With Huggins's help, and access to more than $40 million in loans and
investments from the McKees and others, court records show, Martin
started a series of companies. He helped run Soil Restoration and
Recycling LLC, and sought public funding to help clean up Chattanooga Creek.

The company joined with another Martin concern, M&M Partners, to
develop a golf course and gated community to meet what they said was
a growing demand for luxury housing in a town near Chattanooga,
Ooltewah, according to news accounts. Martin also helped form Four
Seasons Environmental, Ooltewah Properties and Aquaterra Engineering,
according to public records.

The business ventures enabled Martin to accumulate personal wealth
and allowed a company he controls, Martin International Resorts and
Aviation LLC, to buy the jet used by Thompson.

But some of the business ventures gave rise to litigation. Martin
took Tennessee businessman McKenzie to court in 2006 because of a
disagreement over responsibility for the interest on a $127,500 loan.
They settled the matter privately, according to Martin's attorney.
Businessman Scott Hodges took Martin to court in 2005 over $220,000
in proceeds from a development deal the two had struck. That case
also ended with an undisclosed out-of-court settlement, according to
news reports and a source.

But the most intractable case -- one that remains unresolved -- was
the one brought in 2003 by his early patron, Ellsworth McKee. McKee
said in court that Martin and Huggins each borrowed $8 million from
him and refused to repay it.

Martin's lawyer, John P. Konvalinka, has argued that the loan was
forgiven. He said that to some, Martin's various disputes over money
may seem significant, but in fact they are not. "For a man engaged in
1,000 transactions in a year, he doesn't have near the amount of
litigation that some of my clients do."

Martin now lives in Alabama. He works in an office next to a private
airstrip, where his small jet is based.