Utah biker protests denial of reward

WASHINGTON — As Lance Armstrong nears a fifth Tour de France win for his U.S. Postal Service cycling team, Salt Laker Fred Mauney is riding his bicycle for a week around the U.S. Capitol to protest the Postal Service's denial of a reward he says he earned.

"I have nothing against Lance Armstrong," Mauney says. "But if the Postal Service can spend millions of dollars to support his bicycle team, it should afford paying me the reward" of $100,000 he claims for helping to catch the murderer of a Utah postal worker.

"Otherwise, the Postal Service is saying that the lives of its mail carriers isn't worth a plugged nickel," he says, taking a break in the shade in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mauney, whose long gray hair is tied into a ponytail, says he has ridden 8,000 miles in cross-country bike trips through the years for other causes — ranging from to raising money for multiple sclerosis (he says he recovered miraculously from a form of it) to celebrating the U.S. flag — and even promoting legalizing raising industrial hemp.

He has always ridden with a large 4-by-6 foot U.S. flag atop a tall PVC pipe attached to his bicycle. This time, however, the flag is upside down, the universal sign of distress. "That upsets a lot of the security guards and others I see — until I explain to them what the Postal Service and their government is doing," he says.

The roots of his claim go back to the early morning hours of May 21, 1997, near the 7200 South onramp to I-15 in Midvale. Lee Parker was on his way to work for the Postal Service when he was sideswiped by a car driven by Jose Garcia Miramontes.

Miramontes, who was high on LSD according to later court testimony, then shot at Parker. He later drove back to Parker's stopped car and shot Parker several more times, including a shot at close range to the temple.

At that point, Mauney and a friend, Cory Karpakis, came upon the scene and slowed to see what was wrong. Miramontes fired at them, and also chased their truck and rammed it. They stopped at a convenience store and called 911.

They were among witnesses who testified against Miramontes, who was convicted of Parker's murder, and also the attempted murder of Mauney and Karpakis.

Mauney said that after the incident he read on a Postal Service bulletin board that it had a standing reward offer of $100,000 for "information and services leading to the arrest and conviction of any person" for the murder or manslaughter for any postal employee "while engaged in or on account of the performance of their official duties." He photocopied it.