Here’s a sure-fire way to get on a judge’s bad side during a felony trial in which you stand accused of participating in an insurrection: demand to go on a vacation to Mexico after you buy your plane tickets.
No really, that’s what Jason Douglas Owens did this week while facing charges for, among other things, assaulting Capitol Police officers during the riot on Jan. 6th in D.C. Owens and his son, who allegedly wielded a skateboard against police, were quickly outed following the Jan. 6th uprising thanks to social media photos with the elder man facing some serious charges. Apparently, though, the charges weren’t deemed serious enough to stall any vacation plans Owens and his family had.
According to court documents (via The Daily Beast), Owens was awarded a five-day getaway to Cabo Saint Lucas from his company Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals for being a top-selling rep. Owens became aware of the trip on April 21st, filling out a registration form that included questions about his shirt and shoe size, his alcoholic beverage preferences, and his dietary restrictions. (He’s “vegan but not too crazy strict.”) The next day, Owens asked his counsel how to proceed with the planned travel but he didn’t file the “emergency” motion until over a month later once he had already booked his flights and with the vacation just two weeks away.
Maybe it was just poor planning or procrastination, but whatever the reason for Owens keeping the trip secret until the last possible moment, the judge presiding over his case wasn’t having it.
He “seemingly assum[ed] this Court’s approach to nonessential foreign travel by defendants facing federal felony charges would be, like defendant’s adherence to veganism, ‘not too crazy strict,” Judge Howell wrote. “While the Court does not begrudge defendant’s apparent business success while on pretrial release, his international travel to harvest the bounties of such success will need to wait until he is no longer facing felony charges arising from ill-advised domestic travel in January 2021.”
That’s a burn, and not the kind this guy was likely to get on a Mexican beach.
(Via The Daily Beast)