The senior citizen accused of using his small plane to harass a woman in upstate New York for four years called his alleged victim “crazy” — shortly before being arrested for a third time and hit with a stalking charge.
“I don’t know her, she’s crazy,” Michael Arnold, 65, told Fox News Digital Tuesday of Cassie Wilusz, the 42-year-old Schuylerville woman who claims the hobbyist pilot has circled her home from above, pelted her lawn with tomatoes and sexted her racy pictures.
Wilusz said she and her family would regularly be awakened at 7 a.m. several times a week by the sound of Arnold’s plane, which flew so close windows and doors rattled.
Arnold claimed he had only ever eaten at Wilusz’s restaurant, Revolution Cafe in Schuylerville, once but didn’t return after getting food poisoning.
He was already under a temporary order of protection issued in May and told to “cease and desist from flying any and all aircraft”.
Arnold was arrested last week on nine counts of criminal contempt for breaking the protective order and pleaded not guilty at his arraigment Tuesday. As he left court, he was arrested again on the additional stalking charge.
The charges agsainst him relate to a Facebook account Arnold allegedly set up in a false name and used to harass Wilusz and threaten her daughter, according to Fox.
Wilusz told Fox News Digital that she was “relieved” Arnold was taken into custody, even though he was released on bail a short time later.
“He hopefully realizes the time has come, and he has to actually answer to the charges,” she told the outlet.
The bizarre form of aircraft stalking had started after Arnold’s visit to Wilusz’ cafe in 2019.
“He tells me karma is going to get me. He said I killed my dad… and I’m going to kill my husband. I called the police, but it never stops,” she lamented to the Albany Times-Union.
Arnold was allegedly undeterred by an initial restraining order issued that year – and supposedly last buzzed the victim’s home on May 23 this year, just one day after her husband died of cancer.
His alleged online harrassment included sending a photo in an email of Arnold semi-clothed and bound in bed along with several photos of naked women, Wilusz claimed.
Arnold also allegedly wrote about spending time with two girlfriends at the “nudie resort in Jaco Beach” in Costa Rica.
Then he started flying over my house, sending me pictures of my house, my pool, my backyard, of me, my family, my friends,” she told the Times-Union.
For his part, Arnold claims the whole thing is a misunderstanding which has been blown completely out of proportion.
“I have no interest in that woman whatsoever. I never have. They’re accusing me of aggravated stalking. I just like to fly over town and get pictures for the community pages,” he told the Bennington Banner.
With Post wires