NATION/WORLD
Saturday, July 8, 2017
FBI: Flight attendant broke
wine bottle over man’s head
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
SEATTLE — A flight
attendant broke a wine bottle
over the head of a man who
lunged for an exit door and
fought with other passengers
during a Delta Air Lines
flight from Seattle to Beijing,
but it didn’t faze him, an
FBI agent wrote in charging
papers filed Friday.
Joseph Daniel Hudek
IV, 23, of Tampa, Florida,
appeared in U.S. District
Court, wearing a beige jail
uniform and sporting a scrape
or bruise below his right eye.
He was arrested Thursday
night after causing the distur-
bance that forced the plane
to return to Seattle-Tacoma
International Airport, author-
ities said.
Hudek did not speak
during the hearing. His
attorney, Robert Flennaugh
II, declined to comment.
Hudek was charged with
interfering with a flight crew,
which carries a possible
sentence of up to 20 years in
prison and a $250,000 fine.
He is expected to remain in
custody at least until a deten-
tion hearing on July 13.
One flight attendant and
a passenger were taken to
a hospital after suffering
severe facial injuries, author-
ities said. Perry Cooper, a
spokesman for the Port of
Seattle, described the injuries
as non-life-threatening.
A probable cause state-
ment written by FBI special
agent Caryn Highley said
Hudek was sitting in the
first row of the Boeing 767’s
first-class section. He asked
a flight attendant for a beer
before takeoff, and was
served one, but he exhibited
no sign of being intoxicated
and ordered no other alco-
holic drinks, the attendant
told authorities.
About an hour into the
flight, while the plane was
over the Pacific Ocean north-
west of Vancouver Island,
Hudek went into the forward
restroom. He came out
quickly, asked the attendant
a question, and went back in,
the agent wrote.
When he came out
again two minutes later, he
suddenly lunged for the exit
door, grabbed the handle
and tried to open it, Highley
wrote.
Two
attendants
grabbed him, but he pushed
them away, and the atten-
dants signaled for help from
several passengers and noti-
fied the cockpit by telephone,
the complaint said.
Hudek punched one
flight attendant twice in the
face and struck at least one
passenger in the head with
a red dessert wine bottle, it
said.
As the struggle continued,
a flight attendant grabbed
two wine bottles and hit
Hudek over the head with
each — breaking at least one
of them, Highley wrote.
According to one flight
attendant,
“Hudek
did
not seem impacted by the
breaking of a full liter red
wine bottle over his head,
and instead shouted, ‘Do
you know who I am?’ or
something to that extent,” the
complaint said.
One passenger got him
in a head-lock, but he broke
out of it, until finally several
passengers held him long
enough to place zip-tie
restraints on him, Highley
wrote. Even then he remained
combative, she said, and it
took multiple passengers to
keep him restrained until
the plane landed and Port of
Seattle police arrested him.
Hudek had been traveling
on a “dependent pass,” the
complaint said. Such passes
allow certain relatives of
Delta employees to fly
standby.
Passenger Dustin Jones
told KIRO-TV that he saw
the man being rolled into the
terminal in a wheelchair after
the plane landed.
“He started yelling for
help,” Jones said. “And so he
turned the wheelchair over
in the middle of the airport,
screaming for people to help
him, just being belligerent.”
BEARD: Convention center is
supported through two lodging taxes
Continued from 1A
He said the convention
center needs to focus on
three things — technology,
food and customer service.
Beard already has several
ideas revolving around these
basic themes, including an
app that would book space
at the facility, better wi-fi
for events like the OSAA 2A
basketball tournament, more
locally-sourced catering and
joining Meeting Planners
International, a trade group.
For Beard, 59, it’s been a
quick ascent through Pend-
leton’s tourism industry for a
man who’s the son of a horse-
shoer and was doing livestock
contracting as recently as
2013.
“I’m happiest on horse-
back, and that’s how I thought
I would be forever,” he said.
Beard grew up in a
“rodeo and ranch” family
in Outlook, Washington, an
unincorporated community
just east of the Yakama Indian
Reservation.
He got his first taste of
the Round-Up when he was
nine years old, but it wasn’t
until decades later that he got
his chance to make Eastern
Oregon his permanent home.
In 1988, Hamley &
Co. bought a rope-making
company Beard co-owned
and operated out of Ellens-
burg, Washington, and hired
him temporarily to help with
the transition.
“I came to Pendleton and I
forgot to leave,” he said.
In the ensuing years,
Beard coached the rodeo
team at Walla Walla Commu-
nity College, worked for his
family’s stock contracting
company and helped organize
rodeos and other events.
With his experience in
business and event planning,
Beard took a job as an event
recruiter for Travel Pend-
leton, the Pendleton Chamber
of Commerce’s tourism arm.
“I went from pulling calves
Nov. 10, 2013, to working for
Travel Pendleton Nov. 11,
2013,” he said.
Having worked with the
convention center while
recruiting events to the area,
Beard took a shot at the
convention center manager
position when it opened
earlier this year.
The
position
had
undergone some turnover
since 2013, when longtime
manager Pat Kennedy retired
but continued to work on a
contract basis.
When Kennedy left the
position permanently in
2016, City Manager Robb
Corbett temporarily assigned
convention center duties to
Steve Chrisman, the city’s
economic
development
director and airport manager,
before reversing course and
re-creating the position as a
full-time job when it became
East Oregonian
Ex-Gitmo inmate gets
apology, millions from
Canada
TORONTO (AP) — A former
Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded
guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in
Afghanistan received an apology and a
multimillion-dollar payment from the
Canadian government after a court ruling
said his rights were
abused.
A government
statement Friday said
details of the settlement
with Omar Khadr were
confidential, but an
official familiar with
the deal said previously
that it was for $8
million. A different
Omar Khadr
official confirmed
the money had been
given to Khadr. Both insisted on speaking
anonymously because they were not
authorized to discuss the deal publicly.
The government and Khadr’s lawyers
negotiated the deal last month based on a
2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that
Canadian officials violated his rights at
Guantanamo.
“On behalf of the government of
Canada, we wish to apologize to Mr.
Khadr for any role Canadian officials may
have played in relation to his ordeal abroad
and any resulting harm,” said a statement
from Public Safety Minister Ralph
Goodale and Foreign Affairs Minister
Chrystia Freeland.
The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when
he was captured by U.S. troops following a
firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound
in Afghanistan that resulted in the death
of an American special forces medic, U.S.
Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer.
Khadr, who was suspected of throwing
the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to
Guantanamo and ultimately charged with
war crimes by a military commission.
He pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges
that included murder and was sentenced
to eight years plus the time he had already
spent in custody. He returned to Canada
two years later to serve the remainder of
his sentence and was released in May 2015
pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which
he said was made under duress.
Escaped inmate may
have used wire cutters
delivered by drone
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A
South Carolina inmate broke out of a
maximum-security prison using wire
cutters apparently flown in by drone,
officials said Friday, describing a new
and devilishly hard-to-stop means of
escape.
Convicted kidnapper Jimmy Causey,
46, was recaptured at a Texas motel
Page 9A
before daybreak, more than two days
after bolting to freedom in a plot worthy
of a Hollywood script. It was the second
time in 12 years that he escaped.
This time, he used a smuggled-in
cellphone to coordinate the delivery
of the breakout tools, investigators
said. Then, with dusk approaching on
the Fourth of July, he cut through four
fences and left a dummy in his bed that
fooled his guards. He got an 18-hour
head start.
When he was caught, he had about
$47,000 in cash, an ID card and two
guns, authorities said.
“We believe a drone was used to fly
in the tools that allowed him to escape,”
South Carolina Corrections Director
Bryan Stirling said. He said investigators
were still trying to confirm that, and he
didn’t elaborate on why they believe a
drone was involved.
But an official aerial photo of the
prison shows rings of tall fences and an
expanse of more than 50 yards between
the prison perimeter and the cellblocks,
making it unlikely someone could have
thrown or catapulted tools to him.
Kevin Tamez, a 30-year law
enforcement veteran who consults on
prison security as managing partner of
the New Jersey-based MPM Group, said
he wasn’t aware of any other U.S. prison
escapes aided by drones.
Third mistrial declared
in ex-cop’s shooting of
black teen
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A third mistrial
was declared Friday in the murder case of
a white former Oklahoma police officer
accused in the off-duty fatal shooting of
his daughter’s black boyfriend.
For a third time in less than a year, a
jury deadlocked in case against former
Tulsa police officer Shannon Kepler.
Judge Sharon Holmes declared the mistrial
after just four hours of jury deliberations,
astonishing prosecutors and frustrating the
family of Jeremey Lake, the 19-year-old
man shot dead in August 2014, not long
after Lake started dating Kepler’s then-18-
year-old daughter, Lisa.
“I’ve never encountered a dynamic
like this in 25 years of practice,” said
Tulsa County District Attorney Steve
Kunzweiler. “In my opinion, there should
be some compulsion placed on jurors to
reach a verdict.”
Holmes had instructed jurors that
they could convict Kepler of first-
degree murder or the lesser charge of
manslaughter. Manslaughter carries a
sentence of four years to life in prison,
while the sentence on a first-degree murder
conviction is life in prison.
The jury deadlocked 6-6, but
Kunzweiler said it was unclear if the
breakdown was six for conviction and six
for acquittal or six for murder and six for
the lesser charge of manslaughter.
FRIENDS &
FAMILY
EO file photo
Pat Beard, circa 1989, making ropes in what is now the
Slickfork Saloon in Pendleton.
clear that Chrisman couldn’t
handle the job on a part-time
basis.
Corbett said Beard stood
out because of his experience
in event recruitment and
familiarity with Pendleton.
“He talks about Pendleton
in a way that gets people to
come here,” Corbett said.
It also helps that he played
a role in bringing a major
event to the facility.
Eric Folkestad said he
met Beard four years ago at
an unmanned aerial systems
conference at the convention
center when he proposed the
idea of starting a motorcycle
rally in Pendleton.
Beard helped hook him up
with Kennedy and Pendleton
Bike Week was born.
The event grew in its
second year and, ahead of the
2017 bike week, Folkestad
involved Beard in a pitch to
bring on Harley Davidson as
a sponsor.
The event is now officially
called Pendleton Bike Week
powered by Harley Davidson,
and Folkestad said the rally
can now comfortably adver-
tise itself as the largest motor-
cycle event in the Northwest.
Although the convention
center already books 145
events over 210 days per year,
Beard said he’s looking for
more events that bring people
from outside town.
Those visitors are more
likely to stay in one of the
Pendleton
area’s
1,200
rooms, which literally helps
the convention center pay its
bills.
The convention center
is supported through two
lodging taxes — the Tourism
Promotion
Assessment
Charge and the Transit Room
Tax. Combined, the taxes are
expected to produce $604,000
in convention center revenue
over the course of the current
fiscal year.
But beyond whatever
Pendleton’s facilities can
offer, Beard said the city
itself is the biggest selling
point for event coordinators, a
community hospitality honed
through more than a century
of Round-Ups.
“Our town is like
Mayberry, but our Taylor is
Til, not Andy,” he said.
Although Beard’s current
job binds him to an office,
he isn’t completely divorced
from his previous life.
Beard lives with his girl-
friend, Stephanie, in a home
north of Helix. And he still
has time to attend 20 cattle
brandings each year.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
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