A woman found guilty of sneaking onto a flight out of JFK Airport has been sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release.
Svetlana Dali stowed away on a Delta flight from New York to Paris last year and was sentenced Thursday. She told the judge that she snuck onto the plane because the U.S. military had poisoned her, ABC News reported.
Through a Russian interpreter before the sentence was handed down, Dali said, “My actions were directed toward only one purpose: to save my life.”
Dali is a Russian citizen and a U.S. permanent resident who recently lived in Philadelphia. In a lengthy statement in court lasting more than half an hour, she blamed “circumstances beyond my control” for her stowing away on the flight, claiming that the U.S. military had subjected her to poisonous chemicals.
"I was forced to escape from the United States because I was poisoned," she said. "I can draw a conclusion that I was poisoned by those military chemicals in the United States."
The FBI arrested her following her deportation from France to the U.S.
Dali has spent the last seven months in jail, which federal prosecutors said was enough, as sentencing guidelines suggested zero to six months behind bars.
In a sentencing memo, prosecutors argued that "Stowaway travel is a serious offense that endangers both the offender and other air passengers. Deterrence is particularly important in stowaway cases, as publicized incidents encourage copycat behavior that threatens the safety of air travel and undermines the integrity of airport security systems.”
Judge Ann Donnelly noted that Dali has had a “difficult life” but added that deterrence was required.
"When someone gets onto a plane without a seat, without a ticket, it's a danger," she said. "It's possible that other people would try to do the same thing, and that's a situation our society cannot tolerate."
The judge said the year of supervised release was intended to help Dali get mental health treatment.
"I hope you will work with all the people who are trying to help you," said Donnelly.
A jury in Brooklyn convicted Dali in May of a federal stowaway charge after she slipped past gate agents onto a flight to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport on November 26 last year. She didn’t have a ticket and bypassed a number of boarding pass and identification checkpoints.
Prosecutors said she entered the plane and hid in one of the bathrooms for several hours. When she was discovered, Dali faked vomiting as an excuse for spending such an extensive amount of time in the bathroom.
When a flight attendant asked for her name and her boarding pass, Dali provided two fake names and was unable to produce a boarding pass or identification, prosecutors said. The flight attendant then told Dali to sit in a seat reserved for the flight crew as the plane was about to land.
Dali was flown back to the U.S. on December 4 last year. Prosecutors said attempts were made to fly her back sooner, but they were unable to do so due to her disruptive behavior.
After her release in early December, Dali allegedly removed her ankle monitor and traveled to Buffalo, where she was unable to cross into Canada on a bus on December 16. She has since been in custody.
According to prosecutors, Dali has attempted to fly as a stowaway on two previous occasions at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut and Miami International Airport.
As the Connecticut State Police has an active case against her, she won’t be released at this time.
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