A 31-year-old JetBlue woman flight attendant has been charged with ditching nearly 32 kilograms of cocaine valued at USD 3 million at Los Angeles International Airport.
Marsha Gay Reynolds, a former Jamaican beauty queen and college track athlete, appeared yesterday in Brooklyn Federal Court supported by family, her minister, and a former city councilman with a checkered past.
She faces at least 10 years in prison if convicted.
She was cleared for takeoff on a USD 500,000 bail until Assistant US Attorney Alicia Washington requested a stay until an appeal could be heard by a federal magistrate judge in Los Angeles, New York Daily News reported.
The prosecutor argued that last Friday's bizarre incident in which Reynolds abandoned two pieces of luggage after she was randomly selected for checkpoint screening was not her first try at drug smuggling.
Reynolds kicked off her Gucci shoes and fled the airport leaving behind the coke valued at USD 3 million. She somehow made her way home later to Queens where she surrendered to authorities on Wednesday.
"The defendant's co-conspirator also has tried to flee to Jamaica (the Caribbean Island) as recently as last night," Washington told Magistrate Viktor Pohorelsky.
Reynolds' unidentified guy pal has access to forged travel documents, Washington said.
Defense lawyer Dennis Ring said negotiations for his client to surrender in Los Angles blew up when the coke case went viral in the media.
Reynolds, a graduate of New York University, and is studying to be a nurse at Mercy College while working for JetBlue. She has been suspended from her job.
The judge okayed the bail bond which will be secured by homes owned by Reynolds' mom and the Pentecostal minister. She would be required to stay at her parents' home in Queens but could attend school.
Allan Jennings, a spokesman for the flight attendant said he would not characterise the co-conspirator referred to by the prosecutor as Reynolds' boyfriend.
"She may not have been fully aware of what was in the bags," Jennings said, adding that she got out of Los Angles on Friday night not long after she was stopped, using her JetBlue credentials which were still in effect until yesterday.
