A Lucas County man has been sentenced to more than a year in federal prison for aiming a laser pointer at an Ohio State Highway Patrol helicopter while it was flying overhead. The sentence closes out a case that began with a beam of light pointed into the sky and ended with federal time behind bars.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Ohio
, the 42-year-old man was sentenced to more than a year in federal prison for flashing the laser pointer at the OSHP aircraft while it was in flight. A separate report from
13abc
identified the man as Branden Lounsbury, though that outlet listed his age as 41, a year off from the figure given by federal prosecutors.
A Federal Case Built On a Beam of Light
Pointing a laser at an aircraft is not a minor offense under federal law. Per the United States Code, the statute covering the act of aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft or its flight path allows for a fine, imprisonment of up to five years, or both. The OSHP helicopter involved in this case was airborne at the time the laser struck it, putting the aircraft and anyone on board at risk.
The case echoes another recent Toledo-area prosecution over lasers pointed at OSHP aircraft. In that incident, the station's report notes that OSHP Aviation discovered someone pointing a blue laser at a patrol plane around 10:30 p.m. on June 17, 2025, with a second, green laser traced to a nearby business about 15 minutes later. One of the two men charged in that case, Terrell Taylor, ultimately pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disrupting public services, and the laser-interference charge against him was dropped at sentencing in September, when he received two years of community control.
A Nationwide Problem For Pilots
Laser strikes on aircraft have become a persistent headache for pilots and law enforcement nationwide. The U.S. Attorney's Office, citing the Federal Aviation Administration, stated that lasering incidents on aircraft increased tenfold between 2014 and 2023. Separately, the Federal Aviation Administration reported receiving 13,304 pilot reports of laser strikes in 2023, a 41 percent jump over the prior year.
More recent figures diverge on how the trend has moved since then. The FAA's newsroom later reported that pilots logged 10,994 laser strikes in 2025, describing it as a 14 percent decrease from the year before. Spectrum News 1, however, put the 2025 national total at 10,121 strikes, with 262 of those occurring in Ohio. The two figures do not match, and the discrepancy between them has not been resolved.
Toledo is not the only place where lasering a police aircraft has landed someone in federal custody. The FBI's Las Vegas Field Office announced that a Las Vegas man was sentenced to nine months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for pointing a high-power laser at a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department helicopter. That case, like the one in Lucas County, underscores how federal prosecutors have treated laser strikes on law enforcement aircraft as serious crimes rather than pranks.
