United Pilot Paid $300K after Indecent Exposure Arrest

[Airbubba]

Originally Posted by Jet Jockey A4

Good for him... Now I hope he gets back pay from United for his 6 months suspension.

According to this Denver Post article he was paid during his suspension. He's back on the line and flying out of IAD but says he gets pulled aside and questioned by Homeland Security whenever he reenters the U.S.

Collins was suspended with pay from his job for six months until the criminal case was dismissed in March by a judge, at the recommendation of the Denver district attorney’s office. The pilot was also running for election to serve as the president of the pilots’ union, but he withdrew his candidacy because of the arrest.

“I wish the DIA Westin would have called me and let me know I was putting on a show in my birthday suit. I had no idea. I woke up in a strange hotel room, opened the curtains, got ready to shower, and got a phone call that lasted 24 minutes. … I now realize that some unseen people in the terminal were watching me from over 100 yards away,” Collins said in a statement in March.

One Transportation Security Administration officer told police he could see Collins “touching himself” and waving at him [without using his hands according to some crew bus versions of the tale] from the 10th-floor room. That’s absurd, Collins said in an interview last November.

“Some witnesses said I was dancing, gyrating and waving,” he said. “I’m completely innocent. It’s really unfortunate that it happened at all.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/12/naked-united-airlines-pilot-arrested-at-dia-settlement/

Originally Posted by etudiant

Egregious, he should sue both the hotel and the peeping tom who called the police.
Common sense appears to have suffered oxygen deprivation in Denver.

The litigation and financial settlements may not be over.

For his part, Collins says, "The biggest relief for me was when the criminal case was dismissed. You're an innocent person in lockdown for 23 hours a day in a jail cell — and that's not to mention the suffering my family had to go through the whole time."

With respect to the settlement, he feels "that was the logical next step, and it's great that I was vindicated. But we think the Westin shares some culpability, too — and in our system, you have to be prepared to go down that road" toward a possible lawsuit.

Even with the settlement from Denver, Collins stresses that the fallout from his arrest is not yet behind him. He had to drop out of the race for the union presidency because of his arrest, "and I still have to explain the situation every time I go to work to every first officer I fly with or every flight attendant who brings it up: 'Oh, you were that guy.' And coming through Customs, which I sometimes do multiple times on the same trip — I often fly to Central America, Mexico, the islands — I'm pulled aside by Homeland Security and asked if I've been arrested. The case was dismissed and expunged from my record, but I'm still compelled to tell Homeland Security about the arrest.

"So I'm required to talk about it continually, and it continues to be difficult," he adds. "So I'm pleased that Denver has acknowledged that it did something wrong, and I think commonsense people will understand that this was an unjust situation. But I still haven't been made whole."

Body cam video of the arrest in this article link:

https://www.westword.com/news/denver...pilot-11545333