The Florida man who landed a gyrocopter on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol a year ago to protest the corruption of money in politics was sentenced Thursday to four months in prison.
Douglas Hughes, 62, a former postal worker, pleaded guilty in November to flying without an airman’s certificate because he altered the one-person helicopter to be heavy enough and travel far enough to require a pilot’s license. The felony carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but prosecutors agreed as part of the plea deal to ask for no more than a 10-month sentence.
U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly scolded Hughes for failing to understand how dangerous his flight was, and for not understanding how seriously Washington residents take national-security concerns after the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001.
"I don't think you appreciate how dangerous your conduct was," she said. "If you don't live here, you might not know how seriously we take this," she said of national security concerns.
Before the sentence was handed down, Hughes said he was remorseful, and apologized to police, tourists who were scared and his family. But he said he had no regrets for the flight bringing attention to the corruption of money in politics.
"It is a question of justice," said Hughes, whose lawyers compared his civil disobedience to Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Hughes' defense lawyers, federal public defender Tony Miles and Bethesda lawyer Mark Goldstone, argued in a sentencing memo that he deserved no more jail time because he didn't gain personally from the incident and didn't hurt anybody.
"Rather than acting selfishly, Mr. Hughes's conduct was an altruistic act that was done in order to advance the interest of the vast majority of people residing in the United States," the lawyers said, calling the "daring" flight "an astonishing act of aerial civil disobedience."
Dozens of people wrote letters to the judge urging lenience for Hughes, including the president of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The defense also included an op-ed in The Hill newspaper from two former members of Congress, Connie Morella and Dan Glickman, who called the flight a deliberate act of civil disobedience.
But the judge didn't agree with the civil-rights comparisons. Boston Tea Party participants dumped tea. Freedom Riders, and King and Parks, protested segregated policies for public accommodations, she said. But Hughes broke aviation laws having nothing to do with campaign finance, she said.
"He's not in that league," Kollar-Kotelly said. "What he did, which he admits, was a publicity stunt."
Prosecutors had requested a 10-month sentence followed by a year of supervised release, along with seizure of the aircraft. But Kollar-Kotelly gave Hughes 120 days in prison followed by a year of supervised probation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tejpal Chawla and Michael Friedman said in a written argument that "this was not a circus act performed by trained professionals in a controlled setting." Hughes "craved attention" while forcing a lockdown at the U.S. Capitol and flying within 0.7 miles of a Delta Air Lines fleet leaving Reagan National Airport, Chawla said.
"The defendant essentially played Russian roulette with himself and the community," Chawla said. "The danger he caused is inexcusable."
Hughes, who lives near Tampa, Fla., made his flight from Gettysburg, Pa., to draw attention to streams of money fueling U.S. elections. He modified the aircraft with containers carrying letters to every member of Congress and a 10-gallon gas tank rather than the standard 5 gallons. He also placed a U.S. Postal Service logo on the aircraft.
Hughes was seen flying hundreds of feet off the ground along the National Mall from the Washington Monument before landing on the Capitol’s West Front lawn, police said. The area is a no-fly zone.
The case raised national-security concerns because of how close Hughes flew to the White House and other federal monuments. In the aftermath, the Federal Aviation Administration was able to detect the aircraft on radar, but it was small enough and slow-moving enough that radar would routinely be filtered to ignore it was a possible bird or other small object.
