Man who landed gyrocopter outside US Capitol gets 4 months in prison


In sentencing 62-year-old Douglas Hughes, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said he displayed a total lack of concern for his safety or that of others. She said he knowingly violated airspace restrictions around the nation's capital, some of the most restricted U.S. airspace, and didn't seem to appreciate how dangerous his actions were. It was only by chance that no one was harmed, she said at a hearing, which lasted hours.



Prosecutors had asked the judge Thursday to sentence Hughes to 10 months in prison, arguing that his flight from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to the nation's capital put countless lives at risk. Hughes "craved attention" and "violated important public safety laws because he wanted people to pay attention to his political views," prosecutors wrote in a document filed with the court ahead of sentencing.

Hughes' attorneys, meanwhile, had argued in their own memo that he should be allowed to remain out of jail and said his actions were "in the nation's proud tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience."


In writing and in court they compared Hughes' flight to the acts of civil disobedience undertaken by Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Henry David Thoreau and the freedom riders.


"He's not in that league," she said, calling his actions a "stunt," a word Hughes also has used.

Hughes said outside of court that there weren't any laws related to campaign finance that he could break. He said he was "not totally pleased nor terribly displeased" with the sentence.

"Yes, it was worth it," he said.



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