LOS ANGELES — A movie producer who buzzed the Santa Monica Pier in a Soviet-era military jet to promote an action film was sentenced Monday to 60 days in jail and fined $900 for recklessly operating an aircraft in a manner that endangered life and property.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Harold I. Cherness also placed David G. Riggs, 48, on three years’ probation, imposed $260 in court fees and ordered him to clean city beaches for 60 days as community service. Cherness, however, stayed the jail sentence pending an appeal.
A jury convicted Riggs on Thursday of violating a rarely used section of the California Public Utilities Code that is designed to protect the public from careless and reckless pilots.
Prosecutors accused Riggs of making low-level passes over the Santa Monica Pier on Nov. 6, 2008, to promote “Kerosene Cowboys,” an unfinished film his company was making about a maverick squadron of Americans and Russians on a secret mission to Iran.
During the stunt, Riggs, chief executive of Afterburner Films, flew a 1973 Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros, a Czechoslovakian jet trainer that was popular in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.
His plan was to attract potential investors attending an American Film Institute convention near the pier.
