Let’s hope the terrorists don’t read this. Despite our permanent Code Orange state, the heir to the Hermès fashion-house fortune, Mathias Guerrand-Hermes, last night discovered a way to get to the pilot of his Air France flight from Paris to JFK: sheer drunkenness.
According to a complaint filed today in Brooklyn federal court, a little more than three hours into Flight 008, Guerrand-Hermès, who was seated in first class in seat 4B, crossed the aisle and sat on the arm seat of 4E. The woman in 4E woke her husband in 4F, who asked Guerrand-Hermès to back off. Fireworks ensued.
The captain then exited the cockpit, hoping to calm down Guerrand-Hermès. (Um, all things considered, shouldn’t this have been someone else’s responsibility?) Alas, the peace initiative quickly collapsed when Guerrand-Hermès “grabbed the Captain’s genital area.”
The captain shoved Guerrand-Hermès away, and the head flight attendant moved the 36-year-old real-estate investor to an empty seat a few rows back. Before returning to the controls, the pilot asked Guerrand-Hermès to behave, at which point Guerrand-Hermès tried to punch him.
It then took three flight attendants and the captain to restrain Guerrand-Hermès with handcuffs and shackles and tie him to his seat, where a physician examined him, observing that he “smelled of alcohol and was speaking incoherently.” A law-enforcement source says that Guerrand-Hermès’s intoxication stemmed from a combination of “quite a bit of alcohol” and Propofan, a French pain reliever.
After spending Tuesday night in jail, Guerrand-Hermès — who faces a maximum of twenty years in prison, but a guideline range of zero-to-six months — was released on $50,000 bail. He showed up to court wearing white Converse All-Stars (no laces), blue jeans (no belt), a ripped button-down shirt, and a split lip. His attorney, Craig Warkol of Bracewell & Giuliani (yes, that Giuliani), declined to comment.
