A federal judge Monday rejected a plea agreement that called for leniency and instead sentenced a former defense industry executive to eight months in prison for slapping a baby aboard a Delta Airlines flight last February.
Joe Rickey Hundley initially denied slapping a Minnesota’s woman’s 19-month-old boy and using a racist slur because the child’s crying was bothering him. On Monday, in Atlanta federal court, the smallish, white-haired man turned to the victim’s mother and apologized briefly, after his lawyers asked the judge to sentence him to house arrest.
The woman, 34-year-old Jessica Bennett, found the 61-year-old Hundley’s apology hollow.
“I think it was just protocol — he said what he had to say,” she said. “He is a racist.”
Federal Magistrate Judge Alan Baverman voiced skepticism as to whether Hundley had fully accepted responsibility for his actions, calling it a "close issue," before rejecting the six-month plea agreement. He could have sentenced Hundley to 12 months for the federal misdemeanor. Instead, he imposed a sentence of eight months in prison and one year of probation.
The judge also imposed a $2,500 fine, saying it was lower than the $10,000 maximum because of Hundley’s diminished financial position. He was fired as president of Idaho-based Unitech Composites and Structures after the attack.
Marcia Shein, Hundley’s attorney, told the judge that Hundley was in intensive counseling — at least nine hours a week — and attending daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
“He lost his job. He lost his reputation — you can Google his name on the Internet,” she said. “I know there is a a lot of anger about his use of the N word. … He is not here for those words, as unkind and as horrible as they are.”
Hundley was coming to Atlanta to grant doctors permission to take his only son, who had attempted suicide by taking an overdose of insulin, off life support. “I made the most terrible day of my life worse,” he told Baverman. “I was in a terrible state of mind, and I shouldn’t have had any alcohol.”
Prosecutor Suzette Smikle, however, noted that the investigation showed Hundley had been convicted of assault in Virginia in 2007 and was on probation for drunken driving in Idaho when the assault occurred.
He also had a history of racial epithets, the prosecutor said. Workers for a company moving him to Idaho had complained he directed various racial slurs toward them.
In her statement to the court, Bennett said Hundley’s family tragedy was no excuse for his behavior. She said she and her husband had to take their own 3-week-old child off of life-support four years ago. They later adopted Jonah, now 2.
She said she tried to quiet her child, who was annoying Hundley during the the packed flight. She spent much of the flight standing in the back of the plane with Jonah to keep him occupied. The assault occurred when the child started crying during landing at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“Who does something like that?” she said. “Mr. Hundley is a bully. He saw an easy mark in a woman with a young child to unleash his bigotry.”
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