16-Year Olds Hope Judge Will Expunge Records

The two young men who admitted they were passengers aboard a stolen Cessna 172 have asked a judge in Danbury, CT, for leniency, saying they don't deserve to have criminal records for the rest of their lives.

"He's a good kid and he's only 16 years old," Andrew Mentch's lawyer, Tom Beecher, told the Danbury News-Times. "That will give him an opportunity to have a clean record."

Young Mench and another 16-year old, Thomas Cascio, admitted to authorities they were passengers in a plane they said was stolen by 21-year old flight student Philippe Patricio. As ANN reported last month, Patricio, whom police said was flying drunk at the time, is charged in both New York and Connecticut.

Authorities believe Patricio stole the aircraft in Danbury after he and the two teens entered the airport through a locked gate at which Patricio used a code he obtained as a student pilot. They flew for more than three hours, before landing on an unlit taxiway at Westchester County Executive Airport in New York, according to prosecutors.

The two younger men will attend a court hearing August 23rd. There, they hope to be placed in a special program called "accelerated rehabilitation." If they successfully complete the program, the judge will probably drop the charges against them.

FMI: www.faa.gov