California man denies hiding knife in shoe at airport
The Associated Press
Last Updated 6:58 a.m. PDT Saturday, October 18,
2003
ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) - A California man who tried to board a plane
out of Newark Liberty International Airport with an 8-inch dagger in his sneaker
pleaded innocent Thursday.
Vincent Rosso's lawyer, Joseph Spagnoli, said his 25-year-old client did not even know the knife was buried in the sole of the sneaker because it belonged to his 19-year-old brother.
Rosso told authorities his brother, Joseph, put the dagger in the sneaker so it would be accessible in case he encountered a coyote in the woods near their home in Murrieta, Calif.
Spagnoli said both brothers wear the same size 9 1/2 shoe, and Rosso simply grabbed the pair and packed it for a vacation with friends to New York City.
"It was a stupid, innocent mistake," Spagnoli said. "This was not a person trying to do something against the country."
Screeners at the airport noticed the dagger in the left shoe as Rosso went through a routine security checkpoint earlier this month.
Rosso, a welder, faces up to five years in prison on the state charge of possession of a knife under circumstances not manifestly appropriate.
Spagnoli asked the Union County Prosecutor's Office to accept his client into the diversionary pretrial intervention program.
If accepted and Rosso stays out of trouble for a year, the third-degree charge would be dismissed and all record of his arrest would be erased.
He could have faced federal charges under the Patriot Act - enacted after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 - but he passed a polygraph exam when FBI agents questioned him about how the knife got in the shoe, Spagnoli said.
The Sept. 11 hijackers carried box-cutter knives onto the planes, though they were not illegal at the time. Knives of any sort are now among prohibited items.
"It could have been worse for him," Spagnoli said. "But the agents believed his story."
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