Brawler on Seattle-China flight guilty of four felonies

SEATTLE — A Florida man who authorities say wielded a wine bottle in a brawl with flight attendants and passengers as he tried to open the door of a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle to China has pleaded guilty to four felony charges.

Joseph Hudek IV, 24, entered the plea Friday in Federal Court in Seattle to one count of interfering with a member of a flight crew and three counts of assault on an aircraft with a potential deadly weapon, the Seattle Times reported.

The plea came after Hudek filed an affidavit with the court stating that he bought and ingested “edible marijuana” in Seattle just before his flight.

“Later, while on the airplane and after I had consumed the marijuana, I began to feel dramatically different,” Hudek said in the document.

The federal charges indicate that Hudek — whose mother worked for Delta — was flying first class on a “dependent pass” on July 6 and became violent when flight attendants tried to stop him from opening the door over the Pacific Ocean.

A fight followed in which Hudek is accused of punching one of the attendants twice in the face, hitting a passenger in the head with a wine bottle and punching him.

A flight attendant grabbed two wine bottles and hit Hudek with both, breaking one over his head.

According to a complaint filed by the FBI in Seattle: “Hudek did not seem impacted by the breaking of a full litre red wine bottle over his head, and instead shouted, ‘Do you know who I am?’ or words to that effect.”

It took several passengers to restrain him before the plane returned to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, according to a federal complaint.

A flight attendant and a passenger were treated for severe facial injuries.

Hudek has agreed to pay restitution to the injured passengers in an amount to be determined at his sentencing hearing in May, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.