A convicted drug smuggler on probation for transporting 25 kilograms of marijuana by plane in Iowa has been convicted by a jury in Vermont of flying without a license stemming from a late-night flight into an airport in Rutland County.
Following a trial this week in federal court in Burlington, a jury returned a verdict Thursday finding Angelo Efthimiatos, 49, guilty of “knowingly and willfully piloting an aircraft without an airman’s certificate.”
The charge carries a possible maximum penalty of two years in jail. A sentencing date for Efthimiatos, who lives in the small Rutland County town of Sudbury and is currently in prison, has not yet been set.
“Mr. Efthimiatos and I appreciate the time and care taken by the jury,” Craig Nolan, Efthimiatos’ attorney, said Friday. “During deliberations they requested a readback of testimony and replay of audio recordings, which tells me they had doubt about the government’s case.”
Nolan added, “Unfortunately, the jury erred. Mr. Efthimiatos did not intend to violate the law when he flew the plane and therefore is innocent of the charged offense under the applicable federal law.”
The trial started Wednesday and came to an end late Thursday afternoon, with the jury returning the verdict after about 3½ hours of deliberation.
Prosecutors declined comment.
The charge against Efthimiatos stems from an investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration that began in early April, according to court records.
According to an affidavit filed in the case by Brandon Hope, a DEA special agent, that’s when authorities learned that Efthimiatos was suspected of flying an aircraft despite having his pilot license revoked.
The affidavit stated that Efthimiatos’ license was revoked due to a criminal conviction in federal court in Iowa. The agent wrote that on Feb. 19, 2013, while piloting a Piper plane, Efthimiatos was found to be transporting 25 kilograms of marijuana.
Efthimiatos pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to serve nearly five years in prison, the affidavit stated.
In July 2014, Hope wrote in the filing, the Federal Aviation Administration revoked Efthimiatos’ pilot license, and a few days later, through his wife, he filed an appeal which was not granted.
The FAA order also stated, according to the affidavit, that “No application for a new airman’s certificate will be accepted at any time in the future; lifetime revocation for controlled substance violation.”
Hope wrote that, according to the FAA, Efthimiatos did not surrender the paper copy of his license.
During the investigation that started in early April, the affidavit stated, DEA agents in Vermont learned that Efthimiatos “was associated” with a Piper single-engine plane, tail number N4563F, that had flown between Vermont and Nantucket, Massachusetts, as well as other places.
“While monitoring the travel of N4563F, investigators observed that though there were some flights occurring during daylight hours, there were multiple that were late at night, and appearing to be short in duration,” Hope wrote.
One of those flights took place early in April when the plane left the Rutland-Southern Vermont Regional Airport at about 10:30 p.m., and landed at an airport in Newport, Rhode Island, about an hour later, according to the affidavit. The plane then landed back in Rutland around 1 a.m. the next day, the affidavit stated.
Then, on April 9, Hope wrote that the DEA learned that the plane with the tail number N4563F had traveled to the Rutland airport, and after surveilling the area saw a silver Ford vehicle, “associated” with Efthimiatos’ wife, parked there.
The plane, however, was not at the airport, the agent wrote.
“Surveillance was maintained on the airport until the early morning of April 10, 2018, when at approximately 12:15 a.m., investigators observed a small plane flying over the Rutland airport,” Hope wrote. “The plane circled then landed.”
At that time, the airport was unstaffed, though it was not closed to air traffic.
Federal agents then went up to Efthimiatos as he walked away from his plane and heading to the silver Ford vehicle, the affidavit stated.
Efthimiatos provided agents with a pilot’s license that had the same number as the one that had been revoked, Hope wrote. No drugs or large amounts of money were found on the plane, according to the affidavit.
“When asked where Efthimiatos went, he explained that he had gone to Nantucket to meet a friend,” Hope wrote in the filing.
Nolan, Efthimiatos’ attorney, said the defense primarily focused on the “defective revocation” of his client’s pilot license and lack of knowledge of about the “finality of the purported revocation.”
The attorney added that he plans to appeal based on several earlier rulings in the case, including a denial of a motion to suppress statements made by his client to authorities.
CORRECTION: This story initially said that the airport in Rutland was closed at the time Efthimiatos landed. It was unstaffed, but was not closed to air traffic.
