A tourist from Washington state pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges accusing him of hurling a coconut-sized rock at an endangered Hawaiian monk seal and was ordered to stay away from Hawaii beaches.

Igor Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, was in U.S. District Court in Honolulu Wednesday, where he pleaded not guilty to charges of harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal. U.S. Magistrate Judge Rom Trader allowed him to remain free pending the criminal case but ordered him to stay away from beaches and marine wildlife while in Hawaii.

"You're not going to the beach, you understand that," Trader told Lytvynchuk, who responded that he understood.

Lytvynchuk declined to comment after the hearing.

One of his defense attorneys, Myles Breiner, said previously his client was trying to protect sea turtles and has since been physically assaulted, threatened and doxed.

Earlier this month, a witness recorded what prosecutors say was a video of him throwing the rock at a Hawaiian monk seal at a Maui beach. He later made arrangements to surrender in the Seattle area as special agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were seeking to arrest him, prosecutors said.

The video drew widespread condemnation and demands for prosecution in Hawaii, including from Maui's mayor. Scientists identified the seal as an adult male known as "R404," NOAA said.

According to prosecutors, a state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore.

The video showed Lytvynchuk throwing the rock, described by a witness as the size of a coconut, directly at the seal, narrowly missing its head, prosecutors said in a criminal complaint.

When a witness confronted Lytvynchuk, he said "he did not care and was 'rich' enough to pay any fines," according to the complaint.

Afterward, a man "brutally assaulted" Lytvynchuk, Breiner said. Lytvynchuk declined to file a police report on the assault, the attorney said.

Breiner explained his client had been to Hawaii previously and was familiar with sea turtles, but not Hawaiian monk seals. Lytvynchuk is a fisherman and thought the seal was an aggressive sea lion, the lawyer said.

"So his response was not to hurt this monk seal, but to get it away from the turtles," Breiner said.

The incident shows NOAA must do more to educate the public about protecting Hawaiian monk seals, Hawaii's U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Since the video surfaced, Lytvynchuk has faced death threats and doxing, including receiving a package at his home containing what appeared to be feces, Breiner said.

He said his client is being treated unfairly because he is a white outsider. "The vast majority of attacks on monk seal and turtle are by locals," he said.

Lytvynchuk is charged with violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.

If convicted, he faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

At the hearing, attended by numerous Hawaiian monk seal protection activists, Trader set a scheduling hearing for June 9, but said Lytvynchuk is allowed to participate by phone or video from Washington. Trader ordered him not to travel outside Washington and Hawaii. Lytvynchuk said he surrendered his U.S. passport to authorities.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a push to avoid a lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users, a decision that comes as social media companies increasingly face legal scrutiny.

Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. appealed after Vermont's highest court allowed a suit filed by its attorney general in 2023 to move forward. The company is facing similar lawsuits from states across the country, accusing it of knowingly designing addictive features.

Meta had argued that it can't be sued in Vermont court because neither the company nor the app design has specific ties to the state. Vermont countered that the sites' large number of teen users gives its courts jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. The procedural decision comes after court losses for Meta and YouTube in social media addiction lawsuits in California and New Mexico.

Vermont's lawsuit was filed after an investigation by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in several states. Newspaper reports based on Meta's own research also found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media "almost constantly," according to the Pew Research Center.

Meta, for its part, has said that it has already introduced dozens of tools to support teens and their families and suggested it would have worked with the states on standards for youth social media use.

Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark applauded the decision, saying it affirms "that companies that choose to do business in Vermont, like Meta, can be held accountable when they harm kids."

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with President Donald Trump's administration in a lawsuit over speech restrictions for immigration judges that touched on the rights of federal workers.

The justices overturned a lower-court ruling that had allowed the case to proceed and raised questions about whether a complaint system for federal employees is still working as intended after the Republican president fired some of its top officials.

Immigration judges are federal employees, unlike those in federal courtrooms. They want to sue over a policy restricting their public speeches that started in Trump's first term in office and continued under President Joe Biden's Democratic administration. The judges argue it is a free speech issue that belongs in federal court.

The Trump administration disagreed, saying the judges must instead take their dispute to the complaint system for federal employees overseen by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The court ruled on procedural grounds, but Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, wrote to rebuke the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for responding to "political controversies of the day."

Tuesday's decision comes as the court weighs another lawsuit about Trump's power to fire heads of independent agencies. The outcome is also expected to affect firing power over Merit Systems Protection Board members.

The judges first sued in 2020, and the Supreme Court previously temporarily sided with them on an emergency basis in December 2025. A union said in a statement that the judges were disappointed by the decision, but the case is "far from over."

"Justice cannot endure when judges are intimidated into silence, nor can a nation remain free when the rule of law is subordinate to the whims of political ambition," the National Association of Immigration Judges said.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche applauded the decision, saying it "sends a clear message: lower courts must accept that the law is the law, no matter the 'political controversies of the day,'" he wrote in a social-media post.