New York City Mayoral Candidate Tried To Hijack A Flight

New York mayoral candidate Aaron Commey decided to hijack an airplane 17 years ago because he was convinced he had to take down an imaginative group called "Cabal," the New York Post reported Wednesday.

The Libertarian Party Candidate, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and delusional disorder, took over the cockpit of an airplane with a handgun and a knife July 27, 2000. On the plane were 150 passengers.

Commey, who was 22 years old at the time, told the pilots to clear the flight and ordered the plane to fly to Antarctica or Argentina. The Las Vegas-bound airplane never left the JFK Airport runway.

He was arrested and charged with five crimes, one of them attempt to commit aircraft piracy. No one was injured.

Commey was found not guilty on all counts in September 2003 by reason of insanity. He was admitted to a medical center. A year later, he was transferred to Federal Medical Center in Massachusetts, where he spent almost 15 years.

Former Rep. Anthony Weiner is slated to serve his 21-month sentence in the same facility.

When asked why the citizens of New York should trust him to be their mayor, Commey explained that he had recovered since the hijack attempt.

"I am not the same person that I was. I was definitely severely mentally ill. And in addition to recovering from my mental illness without medication, I am a completely different person in terms of how I approach situations and I’m committed to nonviolence," he said to City & State Tuesday.

Commey, who grew up in the Bronx, will be on the ballot when New Yorkers go to the polls to vote Nov. 7. On his agenda: the Justice System and Mental Health Issues.

His "passion for reform was born out of his own experience overcoming his own trials and tribulations with the Justice System and Mental Health Issues," according to Vote Commey.

"Experiencing my own personal injustice, seeing injustice happen to other guys, that's one of the things that had driven me to wanting to get involved to try and change the system," Commey said to City & State.