Tennessee Man Sentenced for Assaulting Person on Airplane
| U.S. Attorney’s Office October 12, 2012 |
MADISON, WI—John W. Vaudreuil, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, announced that Mitchell Wilhoit, 32, of Greenville, Tennessee, was sentenced today by U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker to three months of unsupervised probation and a $500 fine for assaulting another person on an airplane. He also spent four days in jail immediately following his arrest. Wilhoit pleaded guilty to this charge on July 12, 2012.
On August 6, 2011, the defendant was a passenger on a Delta flight scheduled to fly between Minneapolis and Kansas City but which was diverted to Madison. While on that flight, Wilhoit refused to obey the flight attendants and was found smoking in the bathroom of the plane. As the plane was taxiing, Wilhoit got out of his seat and walked toward the back of the aircraft. Eventually, a flight attendant had to push him into a seat to get him to sit down.
The charges against Wilhoit were the result of an investigation conducted by the Dane County Sheriff’s Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prosecution of the case has been handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Altman.