A troubled Indiana money manager accused of trying to fake his death and escape financial ruin by parachuting before crashing his plane is competent for a June trial, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled Marcus Schrenker, 38, should face trial on charges of intentionally crashing the single-engine Piper Malibu on Jan. 11 and placing false distress calls.
Schrenker also faces millions of dollars in judgments and penalties in Indiana related to his failed business dealings. Prosecutors in Indiana are waiting to try Schrenker until the Florida charges are resolved.
Authorities say the amateur daredevil pilot bailed out over Birmingham, Ala., and took a motorcycle he had stashed in a nearby storage unit to a remote Panhandle campground where federal marshals tracked him three days later. They found him with his wrist slashed and drifting in and out of consciousness after an apparent suicide attempt.
The plane drifted 200 miles on autopilot toward the Gulf of Mexico, but ran out of fuel and crashed into a marshy area behind a Panhandle neighborhood near Milton.
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