By Emanuella Grinberg Court TV
MIAMI Jurors watched two hours of footage from a bar surveillance camera Wednesday showing two America West pilots shooting pool and drinking beers just hours before they were scheduled to fly. Defense lawyers played the video during cross-examination of bartender Alvaro "Balo" Simpson to help him recall how many pints he remembered serving the two men on the eve of their 10:38 a.m. flight. Thomas Cloyd and Christopher Hughes, who are accused of operating an aircraft while intoxicated, ran up a bar tab of 17 pints in the early morning of July 1, 2002. When they showed up for work the next day, the pilots went through a security checkpoint at Miami International Airport and screeners reported suspicions that they were impaired. The men failed a sobriety test after being removed from the cockpit and were arrested.
They face up to five years in prison if convicted. The video footage was shot from the surveillance camera above the pool table at Mr. Moe's cantina between 12 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. The defense condensed it to less than two hours. Simpson testified the video did not refresh his recollections of exactly how many times he served Cloyd and Hughes, as he testified Tuesday for the state. In the video, which appeared to wear on the panel of six men and one woman after the first hour, the defendants were not seen guzzling as many beers as their $122 tab implied. The men did, however, rack up countless pool games with strangers and exchange hugs with fellow drinkers as the evening went on. Conspicuously absent from the clips they viewed, however, was the time between 1:57 a.m. and 2:39 a.m., which Assistant State Attorney Hillah Katz did not refer to during her redirect Wednesday. She asked the bartender if he recalled a server bringing three rounds of Sierra Nevada to the men at the pool table. Simpson testified he did. Testimony will resume Thursday morning in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court. |