Christina Elizabeth Szele, of Woodside, N.Y., pleaded guilty Tuesday to interfering with a flight crew member during a June 17 JetBlue flight from New York to San Francisco. Szele was accused of lighting up a cigarette on the plane and then punching a flight attendant who asked her to stop, yelling obscenities and racial slurs.
In fact, Szele became so combative that the flight had to be diverted to Denver, where her legal odyssey began. Although the case was going to be transferred closer to Szele's home in New York, prosecutors kept it in Colorado after the defendant was arrested there for assault and accused of using cocaine.
Szele now resides in a Colorado halfway house, where she will be until her February 5 sentencing. She could get a maximum of twenty years in prison and forced to pay up to $250,000 in fines.
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