A 37-year-old Irvine man was sentenced Monday to 10 months behind bars for flying passengers aboard a private jet after his pilot’s license had been revoked.
Arnold Gerald Leto III was also ordered to serve a year of supervised release after getting out of custody and to pay a $5,500 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Leto pleaded guilty last October in downtown Los Angeles to two federal counts of piloting a plane without a license.
It wasn’t clear why his pilot’s license had been revoked. And officials said that his revoked license had not allowed him to act as a pilot in the manner that he did.
He acknowledged flying a Falcon 10 turbojet with eight passengers aboard from Van Nuys Airport to Las Vegas in April 2016, and a Cessna Citation turbojet from Santa Monica to Phoenix a year earlier.
An affidavit filed in connection with the case states that Leto — whose pilot license was revoked before the first illegal flight — operated the Falcon without having the required co-pilot, and was not certified to fly that type of aircraft.
Leto’s pilot certificate — which he failed to surrender after it was revoked in January 2016 by the Federal Aviation Administration — did not have a turbojet-type rating that would authorize him to fly a Falcon, even if another pilot had been present, authorities said.
—City News Service