LOS ANGELES—A previously convicted 47-year-old Santa Ana man is expected to plead guilty Nov. 29 to aiming a laser at an Orange County Sheriff’s Department helicopter pilot.
Eric Suarez admitted in his plea agreement that on April 13, 2020, he was sitting alone in his parked car when he “intentionally pointed a high-intensity green laser beam” at the helicopter, striking the cockpit at least four times with the beam. The beam blinded the pilot and tactical flight officer for several seconds, impacting their ability to see the ground and detect hazards.
Suarez was expected to plead guilty Nov. 22, but the plea hearing was delayed to next week.
Lasers are dangerous to point at aircraft because it can blind the pilot and cause a crash.
Shortly before law enforcement stopped Suarez’s car, the defendant threw his laser pointer out of the window, but officers quickly located the device, according to the document filed in Los Angeles federal court.
More than five years earlier, in 2015, Suarez was convicted in Orange County Superior Court of unlawful discharge of a laser at an occupied aircraft, federal prosecutors said.
Less than a month before he aimed his laser at the sheriff’s helicopter, law enforcement responded to a report of a green laser beam that showed from his backyard and struck a helicopter eight times.
That night, an officer warned Suarez that pointing a laser beam at an aircraft would be “disastrous” because it could blind the pilot and cause the aircraft to crash, the plea agreement states.
The federal charge of aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft carries a sentence of up to five years behind bars, prosecutors noted.
