The woman who officials say boarded a flight without a ticket in New York during the Thanksgiving holiday and was detained upon landing in Paris has been charged with being a stowaway.
Svetlana Dali appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon for arraignment. She arrived limping and appearing to be in pain and later sat between her attorney, Michael Schneider of the Brooklyn federal defenders, and a Russian translator.
Her attorney said her actions were similar to jumping a turnstile or a theft of services, adding that she went through metal detectors at airport security.
If convicted, Dali could face up to five years in prison, a fine, or both.
She did not enter a plea Thursday as the charge was brought by complaint from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which means defendants don’t pled one way or another in an initial appearance, only once officially indicted by a grand jury.
Dali is set to return to court Friday after the defense and government agreed on a temporary order of detention for time to form a bail package and verify Dali’s address.
Schneider said Dali is a permanent U.S. resident and that officials are trying to locate a Pennsylvania address for her.
Her defender also said that Dali believes her life is at danger if she continues to be detained at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
New York to Paris with no ticket
Dali boarded Delta Flight 264 from John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Charles de Gaulle Airport on Nov. 26, according to an FBI criminal complaint.
She bypassed two security and ticketing checkpoints before boarding the plane without a ticket, a spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement last week. She did complete a full security screening before boarding, the spokesperson said, meaning she did not have any prohibited items in tow and did not pose a security threat.
The FBI complaint said Dali arrived at JFK Airport at 8:13 p.m.
At 8:24 p.m., she tried to get into the security line but was turned away by a TSA agent when she failed to show her boarding pass, the FBI complaint said. Five minutes later, Dali successfully got in the security line by entering through a special lane for airline employees “masked by a large Air Europa flight crew,” according to the complaint.
Dali boarded the Delta flight at 10:03 p.m., the FBI complaint said.
“Delta agents, who were busy helping ticketed passengers board, did not stop her or ask her to present a boarding pass,” the complaint said.
The flight took off for Paris at 10:37 p.m., but before it landed, Delta employees realized she was not supposed to be there, the FBI complaint said. They asked Dali for her boarding pass, which she couldn’t show, and then notified French law enforcement of the situation.
Dali was detained by French authorities when the plane landed in Paris, the FBI complaint said, and was ultimately denied entry to the country because she did not have a valid travel document or visa, a spokesperson for France’s border police said.
She was then removed from her return flight to the U.S. on Sunday after causing a disturbance.
Dali returned to the U.S. Wednesday on a Delta flight and was taken into custody in New York, a senior law enforcement source said.
According to the FBI complaint, Dali was interviewed by agents at JFK, where she admitted to taking the flight without a boarding pass. She also told agents that she knew her conduct was illegal.
“Among other things, she stated that she did not have a plane ticket and that she intentionally evaded TSA officials and Delta employees so that she could travel without buying one, including by looking for opportunities to circumvent them when she knew they would ask for her boarding pass,” the FBI complaint said.
Bypassing airport security ‘rarely happens’
Admiral David Pekoske, a TSA administrator, said that while Dali “did bypass a number of levels” of security at JFK, “I would emphasize that she was screened.”
Still, a passenger bypassing security checkpoints is “not that easy” and “rarely happens,” Pekoske said.
Pekoske said judging by security video, it was “crystal clear” she was trying to evade security checkpoints on Nov. 26 — at the height of the Thanksgiving travel rush — an “incredibly busy day.”
