A 75-year-old Chicago man arrested after officials say he told a flight attendant at Long Island-MacArthur Airport that his bag held a bomb apologized Monday as he left a Suffolk police precinct.

“I’m sorry, it was a joke,” said Draco Slaughter as he was led in handcuffs from the Fifth Precinct, where he was held overnight before his arraignment.

Slaughter was on a Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago’s Midway airport Sunday when the plane arrived at MacArthur at about 2:35 p.m. en route to West Palm Beach, officials said.

Once on the ground, Slaughter retrieved his bag from the rear of the plane and placed it on a seat across the aisle from his own. When the flight attendant asked who owned the bag, Slaughter said it was his and that it contained a bomb, authorities said.

The flight attendant informed the pilot, and the plane was met at the gate by airport police and Transportation Security Administration officials, as well as by the FBI. The plane was evacuated and searched; nothing dangerous was discovered. The flight took off about two hours late, airport officials said.

After being met by law enforcement, Slaughter told police that he’d said that “there could be a bomb,” in his bag, according to the criminal complaint filed against him.

At First District Court in Central Islip, dressed in white pants and a shirt from a West Palm Beach bowling alley, Slaughter shook his head repeatedly as a Suffolk prosecutor described the alleged threat. At one point he began to address the judge, prompting his Legal Aide attorney to interrupt him and advise him not to speak.

The attorney entered a plea of not guilty on Slaughter’s behalf. The charge of falsely reporting an incident in a public place is a Class D felony carrying a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

District Court Judge William Ford ordered Slaughter held on $50,000 cash bail. He is due back in court on Friday.

(Source: Newsday)