Ex-Fugitive Agrees to 12 Years in 1969 Hijacking

A Los Angeles man who escaped from a California prison and hijacked a jet to Cuba more than three decades ago agreed to plead guilty Wednesday in exchange for 12 years in federal prison.

Byron Vaughn Booth, 56, signed an agreement to plead guilty today to federal charges of interference with a flight crew. He initially faced more serious charges of air piracy and kidnapping, for which he would have faced at least 20 years in prison if convicted.

Booth was deported from Nigeria earlier this year, after being arrested by local police with behind-the-scenes help from the FBI.

“We’re pleased that even though it took all these years, it certainly does reflect that the arm of the law is long and that even though someone can hide for 32 years, they can finally be brought to justice,” said James V. DeSarno Jr., assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.

Interim U.S. Atty. John Gordon said prosecutors “are satisfied with the 12-year sentence under the circumstances,” including the fact that Booth didn’t use violence when commandeering the plane.

Also, Gordon said, Booth has a serious illness that essentially means he will serve the rest of his life in prison. He would not disclose the illness.

In January 1969, Booth and fellow inmate Clinton Robert Smith Jr. scaled a fence and escaped from the California Institution for Men in Chino. Booth was serving a term of five years to life for first-degree armed robbery. Smith was serving five years for second-degree robbery.

Both were considered model prisoners.

A day later, Booth and Smith boarded National Airlines Flight 64, bound for Miami with a stopover in New Orleans. After the DC-8 left New Orleans and headed over the Gulf of Mexico, Booth, armed with a .38-caliber handgun, and Smith, holding four sticks of dynamite, ordered the captain to fly to Cuba, authorities said.

Once there, Booth and Smith were taken into custody but were quickly released with the help of Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver, despite demands by U.S. authorities for their return.

Booth had been living in Nigeria for 10 years after an odyssey that took him to Algeria, North Korea and Egypt.

At the time of his arrest by Nigerian authorities, Booth was indigent, homeless and in ailing health, sleeping on the streets of Lagos, according to the FBI.

U.S. diplomats had been aware of Booth’s presence, and kept in touch with him over the last decade by telephone and in face-to-face meetings outside the embassy, where they had no arrest powers. The FBI was tracking his whereabouts as well.

Over the years, Booth made contacts with U.S. authorities, trying in vain to negotiate a deal that would allow him to return and face a reduced prison sentence.

At their last meeting Jan. 19, an FBI legal attache in Lagos told Booth there would be no deal and that Nigerian police were about to arrest him.

With that, the FBI said, Booth shoved the agent aside, dived into a waterway and tried to swim away but was captured.

Earlier this year, Booth told FBI agents that while living in Algeria, he watched Cleaver, who died in 1998, kill Smith because Cleaver suspected Smith of having an affair with his wife.