Jesse Ridgway Arrested After Allegedly Falsifying Police Report to Cover Up Illegal Drone Operation Over New Jersey Wildlife Preserve.
Federal authorities in New Jersey have announced the arrest of 42-year-old Jesse Ridgway on charges of filing a false police report and operating an unmanned aircraft in a restricted airspace. According to an official statement released Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the incident occurred on Monday at approximately 3:15 p.m. local time, when Ridgway contacted local law enforcement claiming his personal drone had been maliciously shot down by an unknown assailant near the Pine Barrens Protected Zone. Investigators with the Federal Aviation Administration later determined through remote identification data that Ridgway’s drone had never been struck. Instead, the evidence indicates he intentionally crashed the device after violating a Federal Aviation Administration no-fly order. Ridgway now faces a potential maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the false report charge, with a separate civil penalty pending for the drone violation. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated, “This was a deliberate attempt to mislead authorities and cover up a breach of national security guidelines. Mr. Ridgway’s actions will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” The case remains under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Jersey State Police.