zlacker

>>tafda+(OP)
20 years is the maximum, not what he'll get. Skimming the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, I make it:

* A base level of 14 for an obstruction of justice charge (§2J1.2)

* -2 for acceptance of responsibility (§3E1.1)

Assuming no previous criminal history, that's a guideline sentence of 10-16 months. If he can get it down one more point to a level 11 sentence, that's a Zone B sentence and can be entirely served on probation.

The DoJ press release is at https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/santa-barbara-county-ma..., but the plea agreement isn't available (yet), which would indicate if they've agreed on an offence level and any adjustments.

EDIT: Found the plea agreement; see comment in thread

>>waiwai+q6
I can't imagine the government agreeing to a plea where this guy does not spend at least symbolic time in the pokey. The offense was too obnoxious and high profile to let him walk.

>>idlewo+Ec
It's not just obnoxious, people hike out there regularly he could have hit and he could easily have started a significant fire in a vulnerable environment. He endangered others for a sponsorship deal and then engaged in a conspiracy to hide it.

>>nieve+zj
I'm not going to lie - I find the video utterly fascinating and I think the world is a better and more interesting place now that it exists. It's a fascinating path permutation of the human condition / state space traversal.

I do think what he did was stupid and brazen and that he should be punished. The punishment should be dealt in such a way that nobody else attempts this again. I'm also glad nobody was hurt (the probability of that was extremely low).

But all of that said, I'm very glad that this video and anecdote now exist. It's incredibly fascinating. Nobody was hurt, and it's such a novel thing.

If you haven't seen the video, you need to see it.

>>echelo+pv
> I find the video utterly fascinating and I think the world is a better and more interesting place now that it exists. It's a fascinating path permutation of the human condition / state space traversal.

The Thomas fire [0] was only 5 years ago. It burned 100k+ acres, killed two people and indirectly killed 20 more, and cost "$2.2B USD" to deal with.

Southern California is not the place to drop planes out of the sky for lulz or money.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fire

>>philsn+hP
One take, perhaps the most natural one for humans, is to reprimand behaviors for their hypothetical outcomes. It's what the law does. It's what parents do. Admonition is a lesson to everyone.

But this is a rare, once in a universe event. And like with D.B. Cooper, Max Headroom, Chris McCandless, and every other wild act of rule breaking, I'm going to hold it close and wonder.

It's possible to hold conflicting opinions and emotions and simultaneously.