A man accused of drunkenly slapping a crying toddler aboard a plane in February pleaded guilty to simple assault. His trial was scheduled to begin today. On Feb. 8, Joe Rickey Hundley, 60, was sitting in a window seat next to 33-year-old Jessica Bennett aboard a flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta; Bennett had her 19-month-old son sitting in her lap. According to the New York Post, the Hayden, Idaho resident reportedly pressed the call button to ask a flight attendant about the airline's policy on "lap children."
During the plane's descent, the boy began to cry and a drunken Hundley told Bennett to "shut the that n***** baby up," then leaned in with his face pressed up against hers and repeated it. An FBI agent's statement says that Hundley then slapped the child in the face, scratching him below his right eye.
He could've faced up to a year in prison had the case gone to trial.
[via New York Post]
