A woman who stowed away on a New York-to-Paris flight in November was sentenced on Thursday to time served, after blaming her crime on poisoning by the US military. "My actions were directed toward only one purpose: to save my life," Svetlana Dali told the Brooklyn court in a statement of more than a half-hour before the sentence was imposed. Dali, 57, has been in jail for seven months, ABC News reports. Sentencing guidelines list a range from zero to six months in prison, so federal prosecutors said she'd done enough time. The judge also required one year of supervised release.
Still, prosecutors had maintained in a presentencing document that deterrence is important in stowaway cases because of the possibility of "copycat behavior that threatens the safety of air travel and undermines the integrity of airport security systems." Video seen by ABC shows Dali approaching a gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City while other passengers' boarding passes and passports are being checked. Once on the Delta plane, she went into a bathroom and hid there for several hours. Prosecutors said that when a flight attendant checked on her, Dali faked that she was vomiting. She did not show her boarding pass when a flight attendant asked to see it.
Dali, who is originally from Russia but has a green card, was not released after sentencing. Connecticut authorities want her extradited to face felony charges there concerning an airport security breach that could bring a prison sentence upon conviction of up to five years, per the AP. That allegation concerns an incident two days before Dali boarded the flight to Paris.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
