SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – A California man pleaded guilty Friday to stabbing a U.S. airman who weeks earlier was hailed as a hero for helping thwart a terror attack aboard a French train.
James Tran, 29, faces a nine-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to attempted murder under a plea agreement, said Shelly Orio, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento County district attorney’s office.
He admitted knifing former Air Force Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone in October 2015 during a fight near a Sacramento bar.
Stone is one of three Sacramento men who tackled a gunman with ties to radical Islam on a Paris-bound passenger train in August 2015. Stone left the military last November as a staff sergeant assigned to Travis Air Force Base, said Staff Sgt. Scott Taylor, a spokesman at the base near Sacramento.
Tran pleaded guilty less than a week before he was to go on trial. He also pleaded guilty to enhancements including causing great bodily injury and using a deadly weapon, Orio said.