10-20-2010, 08:18 PM
New York (CNN) -- While former flight attendant Steven Slater was in court Tuesday on charges stemming from the deployment of an airplane's emergency chute, his apartment was burglarized, according to a news release from the Queens County district attorney.And this allegedly wasn't a random act of burglary. The brother of Slater's partner was the perpetrator, the district attorney said.
"The defendant is accused basically of a crime of opportunity -- brazenly breaking into his brother's apartment in broad daylight when he knew that nobody would be home," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said of the man charged in the burglary.
Jonathan Rochelle, 39, of Belle Harbor, Queens was awaiting arraignment Wednesday in Queens Criminal Court on second-degree burglary and other charges, according to the district attorney's office.
According to the charges, Rochelle stole a laptop, printer, and microwave. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Slater -- who gained nationwide attention in August when he cursed a passenger over a public address system, deployed the plane's emergency evacuation slide and used it to dramatically exit the JetBlue plane as it sat at John F. Kennedy International Airport -- pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of attempted criminal mischief.
Under a plea deal, he must enter a yearlong mental health program.
The former flight attendant, Steven Slater, appeared in Queens Mental Health Court, a pilot program for certain criminal defendants with mental health issues. Judge Marcia P. Hirsch accepted his guilty plea to two charges of attempted criminal mischief, one a felony, one a misdemeanor.