The man accused of a violent outburst on a Boston-bound flight this March in which he tried to open a plane door has been found not competent to stand trial by a federal judge following a competency hearing.
Francisco Severo Torres was charged with interfering with flight operations using a dangerous weapon for allegedly trying to open an emergency exit door and, later, stab a flight attendant with a broken spoon before the flight landed at Logan International Airport on March 5.
Torres "is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense," Judge Judith Gail Dein wrote in an order Wednesday, citing a forensic examination, statements from lawyers and how Torres acted at the competency hearing.
At the hearing on Wednesday, the judge wrote, Torres asked "that he be released so that he could further investigate the conspiracy which eventually led to his actions on the plane. The Court considered, but denied, the request."
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Torres was ordered hospitalized for up to four months to determine if he will eventually have the capacity for the case to forward.
Federal prosecutors have alleged that Torres started an incoherent rant about 45 minutes before the United Airlines flight from Los Angeles landed. After allegedly attempting to stab the flight attendant, Torres was tackled by other passengers and was arrested when the plane landed in Boston.
Passenger Lisa Olsen, who captured video of Torres shouting threatening language, recalled that he "was saying that he was Balthazar, that his father was Dracula, he was going to kill all the men on the plane. There was going to be a blood bath. He was asking where Homeland Security was.”
At an appearance in federal court in Boston, the Leominster, Massachusetts, resident said as he was led out of court, "I am still Balthazar, renamed by God."
Earlier in the hearing, though Dein urged him not to give a statement, Torres made one, telling her that "Father, son and the holy spirit told me to speak."
Torres has a history of mental health issues, including making threats to his mother, prosecutor Elianna Nuzum said in court, asking for the mental health evaluation. He also used similar rhetoric to what passengers heard at a Leominster barber shop a few weeks before the flight, prompting police to respond.
Torres' attorney, Joshua Hanye, objected to the government's request that Torres receive medication and said he felt it was unnecessary to have a competency hearing.
