Re: [SpecialKaye] Watch Out!!!!!
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wanna post the article so we all can see?
January 17, 2007 Web Tools: [print]
Illegal bridge jumpers caught
Five plead no contest to charges
By Susan Williams
Staff writer
Five parachutists who illegally leaped from the New River Gorge Bridge Monday entered no contest pleas to various charges in federal court Tuesday.
National Park rangers discovered the jumpers Monday evening, after they parachuted off the 876-foot-high span. They were arrested after landing on a gravel beach along the river, said Duncan Hollar, an assistant chief ranger with the National Park Service.
In plea agreements worked out with the U.S. Attorney’s office, some of the original charges were dismissed, said Hollar. The five people entered their pleas before a U.S. magistrate judge, he said.
Cinderella B. Aquino, 23, a Michigan college student, and Dennis Dyminski, 30, of Urbana, Ill., pleaded no contest to unauthorized aerial delivery — the jump from the bridge — and were fined $600 plus court costs. Dyminski was also charged with fleeing from an officer and fined $50 plus court costs.
Peter Lutz, 48, of Davison, Mich., was charged with aiding and abetting an unauthorized aerial delivery and fleeing to avoid an officer. He was fined $650 plus court costs, Hollar said.
Victor Survorov, 48, of Romulus, Mich., entered a plea to his second offense of aerial delivery; he was fined $1,200 for that and $50 for fleeing from an officer. His wife, Ekaterina Suvorov, 26, pleaded no contest to fleeing from an officer, and an aerial delivery charge against her was dismissed.
The Suvorovs fled the scene Monday, but turned themselves in later.
The jumpers landed on CSX railroad property, but trespassing charges were dropped in the plea agreements, Hollar said.
He said he believed the five people knew each other and came to West Virginia specifically to jump off the New River Gorge Bridge.
Jumpers who want to parachute from the bridge can do so legally only once a year: Bridge Day, the third Saturday of October.
The jumpers protested to the federal magistrate that they were jailed with people who were charged with crimes of harming other people and with drug use, Hollar said. They said that jumping from a bridge should not have earned them a jail stay with people who were accused of more serious offenses.
Hollar said the magistrate explained to them that the rangers were simply enforcing the law. The magistrate also said they would be welcome to come back and jump legally on Bridge Day.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. To contact staff writer Susan Williams, use e-mail or call 348-5112.
