A man arrested at a Vermont airport is facing charges of using an airplane to stalk a woman in New York, at one point allegedly tossing tomatoes from the plane as he flew over her town.
Michael Arnold, 65, appeared Wednesday in Bennington County Superior criminal court for an arraignment on several charges, including aggravated stalking, providing false information to police, resisting arrest and violating an abuse prevention order.
Arnold invoked his right to wait a day before entering a plea to the charges against him and is due back in court Thursday. Judge Kerry Ann McDonald-Cady told Arnold during Wednesday’s brief hearing that she had rejected his request to be represented by a public defender, saying she didn’t find him “financially needy.”
The judge said Arnold will need to represent himself or hire an attorney to do so when he appears again on Thursday.
Arnold is currently free after posting $5,000 bail, according to court records.
Bennington Police Cpl. David Faden wrote in an affidavit in support of the charges that Arnold reported to police that he lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, and then later said he lived Schuylerville, New York.
According to the affidavit, Bennington police were notified Monday by the FBI in Albany that New York authorities had been investigating Arnold for reportedly stalking a woman in Schuylerville for several years, and using an airplane to do it by flying low over her home. Schuylerville is a village in the northeastern part of the town of Saratoga; the Hudson River forms its eastern border.
Faden wrote that police were told that Arnold’s airplane may be at the William H. Morse State Airport in Bennington, and an officer confirmed Monday that Arnold’s 1976 Cessna 180 single-engine plane, with tail number 7530K, was there. Also, staff at the airport reported that Arnold had been seen Monday flying alone out of the Bennington airport and heading west toward New York, the affidavit stated.
Arnold was arrested Tuesday morning as he was driving into the airport. On May 30, according to court records, he was served with an order of protection from a court in Saratoga County, New York, that included a condition that he “cease and desist” flying “any and all” aircraft while the order remained in effect.
The affidavit filed in the Vermont case stated that after Arnold drove to the Bennington airport Tuesday morning, he demanded to know where his airplane was. Authorities had moved it Monday to an empty hangar, as it had been seized as evidence, the affidavit stated.
Faden wrote in his affidavit that he told Arnold he was under arrest and ordered him to put his hands behind his back, but Arnold then “pulled away” and the officer grabbed him by his left arm and put him in handcuffs.
Arnold told Faden he had not been stalking anyone and he was at the Bennington airport to sell his plane to another person, the affidavit stated.
Arnold also denied flying his plane Monday until Faden told him he had video showing him flying. Arnold then admitted flying over Schuylerville, but said it was only to take photos to post on Facebook, the affidavit stated. Faden wrote that he told Arnold a court order prohibited him from flying and Arnold replied that the order was from a “small-town judge” and the Federal Aviation Administration had never told him he couldn’t fly.
Faden wrote in the affidavit that New York authorities had told him Arnold had been seen flying low and at one point “was observed throwing items from his plane over Schuylerville that later turned out to be tomatoes.”
The affidavit stated that when Faden called the woman Arnold had been accused of stalking to tell her about the arrest, she thanked him and said she had been afraid that Arnold was going to fly his plane into her home.
According to a WRGB CBS 6 report in June, the woman reported that Arnold had been a customer where she worked and at some point he sent her “unsolicited inappropriate” photos by email. After the woman said she told Arnold to stop, the low flyovers of her home began, according to the television station’s report.
