Judge Sentences Airplane Hijacker to 30 Years

A belligerent and cursing airplane hijacker had to be removed from a federal courtroom Tuesday, but not before a judge sentenced him to serve 30 years in prison for taking control of a Southwest Airlines flight last year.

Curley Leandrews Compton Jr. received the mandatory sentence from U.S. District Judge James M. Fitzgerald, who was subjected to a string of expletives from the defendant.

“I think I’ve been railroaded in San Diego,” Compton said in one of the only statements that did not include an expletive. He blamed his situation on “lies, lies, lies, lies” told by the two airline employees who testified against him.

Compton, 56--who alerted Assistant U.S. Atty. Larry Burns last week that he now wants to be known as “Reverend Compton”--was convicted in February of air piracy and interfering with a flight attendant’s duties.

Fitzgerald also handed down a 20-year sentence for the latter charge, but this sentence will run concurrently with the 30 years Compton received for the hijacking charge.

Compton was arrested in San Diego after refusing to extinguish a lighted cigarette during a Feb. 10, 1991, flight from Oakland to San Diego. After flight attendant Diane Calvin told Compton that he was violating federal law by smoking on a domestic flight, Compton handed her a hijack note.

Although the Oakland man later told the attendant that he was joking, authorities did not consider the handwritten note he handed to her a laughing matter:

“Have nitro in my hand, a bomb in my luggage! I want $13 million ransom for plane and passengers. Stop in New York. Have the $13 million waiting, pickup, refuel, fly to Cuba. I am not alone!”

The incident occurred in the midst of heightened airport security during the Gulf War.