Man accused of aiming laser at Trump helicopter acquitted in 35 minutes

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Sat 17 Jan 2026 15.56 EST
Last modified on Sat 17 Jan 2026 15.58 EST


A man tried on a felony charge of aiming a laser at presidential helicopter Marine One while it was transporting Donald Trump was acquitted recently by a jury in Washington DC – which reached its decision in about 35 minutes Tuesday.

The swift verdict of not guilty in the case of Jacob Winkler represented another high-profile defeat for Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host whom Trump appointed to be the US attorney for the nation’s capital. Pirro’s office has pursued harsh penalties against individuals accused of attacking federal officers or threatening the president but has failed multiple times.

Winkler, 33, was arrested in September after a US Secret Service agent claimed to have seen him point a red laser beam toward Marine One as it flew low shortly after leaving the White House. He faced a felony count of aiming a laser at an aircraft, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison. Pirro subsequently promised her office would prosecute Winkler “to the fullest extent of the law”.

At the conclusion of his trial Tuesday, jurors deliberated for a little more than half an hour before acquitting Winkler, according to his public defenders, Alexis Gardner and Ubong Akpan. In a statement to HuffPost, Gardner and Akpan said the outcome highlighted “a disturbing reality”. “In the most powerful city in the world,” the statement said, “the federal government spent scarce resources to make a felon out of a homeless man with nothing but a cat toy keychain.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/17/laser-beam-trump-jeanine-pirro

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Another Pirro FAIL.

[2naSalit]

1. Seems to be...

The only thing she's good at in this new job.

[Bengus81]

7. Yeah....soon enough it will be Jeanine meet bus.

[UpInArms]

2. a homeless man with nothing but a cat toy keychain

Really? Such freaking snowflakes … scared of a cat toy?

[poozwah]

11. oh, the pain!

me ow!

[Just Jerome]

3. Grab 'em by the...

Oh, wait, wrong story.

[SunSeeker]

4. Another Pirro case that should have never been brought. nt

[COL Mustard]

5. Pirro was only trying to get the

Poor guy off the mean streets of DC. That’s all. There was no malicious prosecution or anything like it. Yeah, that’s the story!

[Dr. T]

6. Pirro was probably drunk.

I assume she starts every day with a shot of tequila and uses brandy for mouthwash.

[GreenWave]

8. They should disbar her for frivolous claims.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Lesson learned at Fox Snooze

Believe your own shit.

[JohnnyRingo]

10. ...and he had a public defender!

In those cases they usually just go to the plea bargain stage.
Pointing any laser at an aircraft is, for good reason, a serious crime. Albeit, those cases usually concern expensive lights or even powerful green lasers.

There's a reason the public defenders thought they should take this case to a jury trial. Something's not right from an initial read.

[EmmaLee E]

12. Two reasons for demanding a jury trial

1) The case is brought as a nuisance, and the defendant is obviously not guilty of anything.
2) The penalty to be imposed under the plea deal is just as bad as a conviction. (lesser crime charged, same penalty)

DAs can play with the calendar, pushing the defendant to bargain rather than be under the charge for a long period of time.

[MichMan]

20. "Pointing any laser at an aircraft is, for good reason, a serious crime."

The jury says otherwise. In fact, their ruling indicates it's not even a crime.

[ToxMarz]

13. It clearly was meant to send a message to all the homeless

Don't get out if line if you value your lives of wealth and privilege. No one is beyond their reach.

[Bluetus]

14. The real story here is that while 100% of the legacy media works all day long

to normalize Trump's daily illegality, average citizens are not having it. A 35-minute verdict never happens. That is barely enough time for the jurors to introduce themselves.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. "A 35-minute verdict never happens."

I was actually on a jury a couple years ago when we took less than that time - mainly because the prosecutor's case was just too weak and contrived (it was a criminal felony gun charge).

I.e., we decided within about 10 minutes and the rest of the time was taken to have the foreperson fill out the jury form and allow some time for a couple of jurors to go to the bathroom before we alerted the court worker that we had a verdict.

[Bluetus]

18. :) "My name is Charlie. Anybody ready to bag this thing and get a beer?"

But seriously, whenever I have served, it took at least an hour to decide on a foreman.

But back to my "sense of the street" comment. I am getting the feeling everywhere that people are getting really, really pissed with Trump, ICE, and the Republicans in general. I don't think the media is "reading the room" so to speak, and I don't think the pollsters are asking the right questions. The anger that is brewing is at a deeper level than individual issues. Pollsters have never had to probe into this kind of feeling. The political elites are still acting like this is basically the same business as usual since 1975.

I think we are deep into uncharted territory now. In my circle of friends, two people jump out. These are both really smart people, one a retired college processor and the other a small business owner with a PhD in physics. A year ago they were at least neutral to Trump if not leaning his way. The college professor is Jewish, and maybe he felt like Trump was going to do more for Israel than others had accomplished. And the PhD is a big time libertarian who wants nothing to do with social programs -- everybody should bring their own bootstraps to the party, etc.

They both are extremely anti-Trump now -- more vocal about it than I am most days. This is just anecdotal, obviously, but in my entire circle of acquaintances, I can only think of 4 who are still solid with Trump/MAGA. The rest have either flipped or gone underground.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Oh I know there is massive bubbling of lava "underground" and ready to erupt

The question mark is how that gets reflected at the voting booth when they are doing everything in their power to introduce impediments to thwart voting. But I think the past special elections have been a canary.

But the bigger issue that we need to deal with is in our own states, where as the great Tip O'Neill always said - "All politics is local". So we need to make sure that we have someone running in every one of the federal seats and state seats (because I expect there are some very local areas that have zero Democrats), has a challenger to a Republican.

[Mz Pip]

16. I have that cat toy.

I doubt it has the range or power to bring down a helicopter.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. I have one too when I do my kitteh-sitting for my sisters

It has a selection of "shapes" that it can beam (a shape of a butterfly, a star, a flower, and a mouse) plus a plain "dot".