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Even though he had reached a tentative plea agreement with prosecutors, former TV pitchman "Super Dell" Schanze wouldn't admit on Thursday that he had harassed an owl while flying his motorized paraglider in 2011.
Schanze had been scheduled to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charges of using aircraft to harass wildlife. But when U.S. District Judge Dee Benson asked him if he had indeed done that in February or March of 2011, Schanze replied "No Sir."
"OK," said Benson, "so I'll go out on the limb. What part is not true?" "Pretty much all of it," said Schanze.
Benson explained that there had to be facts agreed to by both sides that would support a guilty plea and Schanze said he was willing to plead guilty but didn't agree with the facts as stated in the plea agreement. Federal prosecutors were unwilling to accept a plea that didn't include an admittance of a violation of the law, Benson told Schanze he needed to agree to the facts of the case if he wished to plead guilty.
At one point, Schanze told Benson that the plea agreement made him into an "evil, horrible person," and he's not that.
Then after Schanze started explaining his position again, Benson suddenly cut off the dialogue and said Schanze would be going to trial on April 20.
Schanze, 45, was charged in October 2014 with one count each of misdemeanor knowingly using an aircraft to harass wildlife and pursuing a migratory bird. The charges followed a federal investigation into the online video, which surfaced in 2013 and appeared to show a paraglider pilot kicking a soaring barn owl and boasting about it.
Schanze pleaded not guilty and in an earlier hearing had blamed the charges on a video made by an "anti-Christ homosexual."
But federal prosecutors have lined up an expert who they say will establish that it is "extremely unlikely" that anyone could have created the video using computers or other editing means.
Keith Swanson, a forensic video analyst from Phoenix, also will point out that the pilot is missing the index finger of his left hand, a court filing says. Schanze is missing that finger.
He'll also show an image in the video of a partial license plate on a truck that is registered to Teresa Schanze, Dell Schanze's wife.
Pepper Trail, a forensic scientist at the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, is set to testify that the bird in the video is a barn owl, which is a protected migratory bird, according to a the filing.
Schanze's trial is expected to last only one day. If convicted, he faces a maximum of one year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000.
Schanze is well known for his local television ads for his business Totally Awesome Computers, which was shuttered in 2006.
After the business closed, Schanze ran unsuccessfully for governor and mayor of Saratoga Springs as a strong gun-rights advocate and has faced a number of relatively minor charges over the years.