NEWARK, NJ – After 3-1/2 hours of deliberation over two days, a Virginia man was acquitted of assaulting an airline ticket agent whose neck was broken during a confrontation as a delayed flight was boarding.
A passenger John C. Davis, 31, was cleared of the single count of aggravated assault. If convicted of the second-degree charge, he faced 10 years in prison.
The verdict came after two weeks of testimony in the so-called “air rage” trial, whose central incident sprang from circumstances familiar to millions of airline passengers: tedious delays in crowded terminals.
Prosecution witnesses said Davis, of Fredricksburg, Va., slammed Continental Airlines ticket agent Angelo Sottile headfirst onto the floor after enduring a two-hour delay in a crowded section of Terminal C at Newark International Airport.
Defense witnesses, including Davis and his family members, insisted that Sottile attacked first by grabbing Davis’s neck, and that they both fell to the floor together after Davis put Sottile in a bear hug.
Sottile, 52, of Kearny, spent five days in a coma. He testified last week he has no memory of what happened. He said he has lost 80 percent of his neck mobility and now only works part-time as a postal worker.
The dispute began when Davis and 10 other family members began boarding a flight to Orlando, Fla., on July 22, 1999, on their way to a Disney World vacation.
Davis’s wife, Victoria, testified Sottile stopped her from retrieving their 18-month-old daughter, Kayla, who had wandered up the jetway, and Davis testified he confronted Sottile after the agent shoved his wife.
Defense lawyer Anthony J. Pope Jr. argued that Davis never intended to hurt Sottile, and was only acting in self-defense.
In summations, he said Davis was happy to be going on vacation, while Sottile was agitated after working more than 14 hours, having finished a full day at the Kearny post office before reporting to his part-time job at Newark International Airport, Pope said.
He questioned accounts by prosecution witnesses: “You can’t pick up a human being and throw him to the ground. This isn’t the WWF.”
Pope urged jurors to view the photographs and medical reports that showed that Sottile landed on the left side of his face and that Davis injured his left elbow, insisting that the information shows they fell to the floor together.
Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Leslie J. Mann maintained his witnesses presented credible accounts that Davis threw Sottile headfirst onto the floor. Davis, an assistant plant manager at a steel plant, has been free on $50,000 bail. The trial began March 19 before state Superior Court Judge Harold W. Fullilove.
