A New York woman was sentenced to four months in federal prison after spitting on a passenger in February 2021. It was the year that followed a record number of incidents of unruly violent behavior on planes.
Kelly Picciardo, a 32-year-old single mother from the Bronx, was found guilty on August 29 in the U.S. District Court in Arizona, and Judge Dominic W. Lanza ordered her to pay $9,123 in damages. After her release from prison, she will remain under surveillance for her 36 months, according to court documents.
“There is a line between crude behavior and criminal behavior on board, and the defendant clearly crossed that line.” Gary Restino of The federal attorney for the Arizona District said in a statement.
Pichardo, who has a 12-year-old daughter and lives with her mother, did not respond to a request for comment. She pleaded guilty in May to one count of interfering with her flight attendants.
“MS. Picciardo is extremely ashamed of his actions on the plane that day,” her attorney, Ana Botello, said in an email.
The altercation broke out when mask mandates and Covid-19 restrictions brought tension to the plane, with unruly and violent passengers pushing, punching and yelling at flight attendants and other passengers.
In May 2021, a woman repeatedly punched a flight attendant, leaving her face bloodied and three teeth chipped. Within days of the attack, her two major airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, had temporarily stopped serving alcohol on board flights to reduce bad behavior, but had resumed serving them. I postponed my plans to start. Both airlines have since resumed selling alcohol. In that case, the woman was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
According to prosecutor and court documents describing the incident, Picchardo was flying from Dallas to Los Angeles with a friend on Feb. 24, 2021, in first class.
The friend used racial slurs as they spoke, prompting a black passenger who was seated behind the two women to touch Ms. Pichardo’s shoulder and offer advice.
Prosecutors said Picciardo spat on a passenger who had been subjected to “racist abuse”.
She was “further enraged” when other passengers tried to record the interaction with her cell phone camera, according to court documents.
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When a flight attendant came over to try to defuse the situation, Ms. Picciardo lunged at him and pushed his chest as he passed him.
The flight was diverted to Phoenix, where Mr. Pichardo and his friend were arrested. Her friend was identified by prosecutors as Lisa Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to interfering with a flight attendant last month and will be sentenced in November, according to court documents.
Prosecutors sentenced Pichardo to four months in prison. He argued that this would show the public the consequences of “disorderly behavior on airplanes.”
“This is very important right now, as the number of these cases has increased over the past year,” they wrote in the judgment memo, recommending the type of punishment defendants should receive.
“With air travel up this summer compared to a few years ago, there is a risk of more of these incidents nationwide,” the prosecutor wrote.
After a Florida federal judge overruled a federal mask mandate for public transit in April, reports of unruly behavior by passengers quickly began to decline.
Picciardo’s lawyers have asked Judge Lanza to sentence him to five years’ probation or serve him at home, noting that Picciardo has been working at a local restaurant since his arrest.
They said he was sexually abused as a child and had a history of mental illness.
“This is because the alcohol, the stress of the flight, and the fact that Ms. Pichardo was touched by a stranger while she was restrained in her seat on the plane triggered all the emotions she felt as an abused child, leaving her to Ms. Botero.” wrote another attorney, John M. Sands.
It said it was not uncommon for defendants to face harsh sentences in such cases where passengers and crew were attacked in confined spaces. Lisa Wayne, Executive Director of the National Association of Criminal Lawyers. Her anger at seeing her flight attendants being abused has also led prosecutors and judges to seek harsher punishments for defendants accused of such crimes, she said. Said.
“This is the worst possible time for these kinds of cases,” Wayne said.
But she questioned the purpose of imprisoning him in exchange for keeping him at home, keeping his job and paying a court-imposed fine.
Sarah Nelson, president of the Flight Attendants Association (CWA), said the sentence handed down to a defendant convicted of assault should serve as a deterrent to “villains in the air or at airports.”
“Flight attendants are aviation’s first responders and not targets of violent passengers,” she said in a statement. “Assault is a federal crime in air travel.”
An American Airlines spokeswoman declined to comment on the verdict, referring to a statement the airline issued shortly after Picciardo’s arrest, thanking the crew for their “professionalism in managing a difficult situation.” .
Pichardo said October 28th.