The two Morris County men who staged a series of UFO hoaxes earlier this year were brought down to Earth in Morris Plains municipal court today.
Municipal Judge Michael Carlucci fined Chris Russo, 29, of Morris Plains, and Joe Rudy, 28, of Chester, $250 each and sentenced the two to 50 hours of community service for creating a disturbance.
Between Jan. 5 and Feb. 19, Russo and Rudy released helium balloons with traffic flares tied to them on five separate occasions in what they called a "social experiment" to debunk the pseudoscience of UFOs.
They set the balloons aloft from a field in Hanover Township, later calling a local television station to report the red lights.
On April 1, they published an article and series of videos on the website eSkeptic explaining how and why they created the hoax.
But one day after the expose, Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi held a press conference condemning the hoax, saying the floating balloons posed a potential fire hazard and could have interfered with air traffic at nearby Morristown Airport.
In court Tuesday, Carlucci accepted a plea deal from Rudy and Russo's attorneys to cite the pair for an ordinance violation. He ordered the pair to serve their community service for the Hanover Recreation Commission, working specifically with youth.
"If you were a pair of 17-year-olds, I would tell you to grow up," Carlucci said to the men. "You're not 17."
Bianchi said he was satisfied with the outcome of the case.
"Throughout we were concerned that what was now a joke could turn into a tragic situation," he said. "It was a tremendous waste of police resources and posed a serious fire threat to homes, wooded areas, and posed a significant danger to air traffic, and tied up valuable 911 resources.
"In mitigation, however, since these defendants stopped their actions once authorities asked them to, have led otherwise law-abiding lives, did not contemplate that their actions would cause harm, and since they were cooperative with investigators, I believe that the plea to a municipal ordinance violation with a fine and community service and no criminal record, serves the deterrent effect in this matter to punish this conduct in a measured way," he added.
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