The wing nut got his wings.
Steven Slater, the former JetBlue flight attendant who made a dramatic take-this-job-and-shove-it exit from his job in August 2010, graduated today from a court-ordered mental health program, and walked away with a sentence of a year’s probation for misdemeanor attempted criminal mischief in his notorious case.
The sandy-haired unemployed Slater was also ordered to cough up $10,000 in restitution to JetBlue — in hefty $831.25 a month payments.
A much thinner Slater was accompanied by his lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, at the Queens hearing, but didn’t speak in court. His lawyer discussed the possibility, however,of probation officials in California becoming involved, suggesting he may ultimately move from his Rockaway Park home to California, where his mother lived until her death last January.
It was a soft landing for the flighty defendant — who originally faced felony charges of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief, as well as criminal trespass. The offenses could have grounded him behind bars for seven years.
Following his hearing, Slater said he was “optimistic” about the future, saying that having the felony charges dropped was “a big relief.”
Slater said he plans to write a book based on his 20 years of flying and concentrate on renovating his parents’ California home as “a loving tribute to them.”
Slater won notoriety when he grabbed some beers, deployed his JetBlue plane’s emergency chute on the JFK tarmac and slid right of his job after a fight with a testy passenger.
But in his most recent interview about his notoriety, there was no love lost for his former bosses at JetBlue.
“I have seen a side of that company that is very disappointing,” he told the Huffington Post earlier this month. “I’m very disillusioned. They have certainly not walked their talk and I have no problem pointing that out on the behalf of many of my friends who still struggle at that work place.”
When asked if he’d ever fly JetBlue again, Slater said “not until hell freezes over.”