Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
A man who was charged with a felony for allegedly shining a laser beam at Marine One while it carried President Donald Trump was found not guilty by a Washington, D.C., jury in less than an hour on Tuesday.
The acquittal of Jacob Winkler marks yet another embarrassing setback for Jeanine Pirro, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who’s struggled to make an example out of people her office claims assaulted federal agents or threatened the president.
Winkler, 33, was arrested in September when a U.S. Secret Service agent allegedly saw him shine the red beam at the low-flying helicopter shortly after it departed from the White House grounds. The felony charge for pointing a laser at an aircraft carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.
At the time, Pirro, a former Fox News personality, promised to prosecute Winkler “to the fullest extent of the law.”
After his trial wrapped earlier this week, the jury deliberated for just 35 minutes before finding Winkler not guilty, according to his public defenders, Alexis Gardner and Ubong Akpan.
Gardner and Akpan told HuffPost in a statement that the verdict exposed “a disturbing reality: In the most powerful city in the world, the federal government spent scarce resources to make a felon out of a homeless man with nothing but a cat toy keychain.”
One defense attorney told HuffPost such cases were “horseshit” and served no purpose other than to boost numbers for Pirro’s office and make crime in D.C. look worse than it really is.
In the most high-profile case, a D.C. man was charged with assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent after hitting him in the chest with a turkey sandwich from Subway. A grand jury declined to return a felony indictment in the case, so Pirro’s office pursued a misdemeanor assault charge against him. A D.C. jury found him not guilty as well.
news.yahoo.com
The acquittal of Jacob Winkler marks yet another embarrassing setback for Jeanine Pirro, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who’s struggled to make an example out of people her office claims assaulted federal agents or threatened the president.
Winkler, 33, was arrested in September when a U.S. Secret Service agent allegedly saw him shine the red beam at the low-flying helicopter shortly after it departed from the White House grounds. The felony charge for pointing a laser at an aircraft carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.
At the time, Pirro, a former Fox News personality, promised to prosecute Winkler “to the fullest extent of the law.”
After his trial wrapped earlier this week, the jury deliberated for just 35 minutes before finding Winkler not guilty, according to his public defenders, Alexis Gardner and Ubong Akpan.
Gardner and Akpan told HuffPost in a statement that the verdict exposed “a disturbing reality: In the most powerful city in the world, the federal government spent scarce resources to make a felon out of a homeless man with nothing but a cat toy keychain.”
One defense attorney told HuffPost such cases were “horseshit” and served no purpose other than to boost numbers for Pirro’s office and make crime in D.C. look worse than it really is.
In the most high-profile case, a D.C. man was charged with assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent after hitting him in the chest with a turkey sandwich from Subway. A grand jury declined to return a felony indictment in the case, so Pirro’s office pursued a misdemeanor assault charge against him. A D.C. jury found him not guilty as well.
Man Charged With Shining Laser Pointer At Trump’s Helicopter Acquitted In 35 Minutes
It's another embarrassing outcome for Jeanine Pirro, who tried to "make a felon out of a homeless man with nothing but a cat toy keychain."
