Paris stowaway gets time served but won't fly free

BROOKLYN (CN) — Svetlana Dali, the 57-year-old woman who managed to board a full Delta Air Lines flight from New York City to Paris last year without a ticket or passport, received a sentence of time served Thursday after delivering a statement for nearly 40 minutes explaining that she believed she was being poisoned in the United States, prompting her to flee.

“My actions were directed toward only one purpose: to save my life,” Dali told the court through a Russian translator.

Her poisoning allegations weren’t allowed as part of her defense, but it was a claim she made during an FBI interview following her arrest at Charles de Gaulle Airport; she told agents that even though France is the “worst country,” she had to leave because American police refused to protect her.

While Dali, a permanent legal U.S. resident who earned law and economics degrees in her home country of Russia, was competent to stand trial, she presented as a person experiencing mental illness and argued in objection to her pre-sentencing report that “the fact that she suffered from a delusional disorder when she testified makes it impossible for the government to establish willfulness.”

On the stand, Dali freely admitted that she had taken the redeye trip without a boarding pass or passport. She spent almost the entire trip holed up in the bathroom, telling flight attendants she was vomiting, and gave two fake names when they asked her to find a seat shortly before a turbulent landing.

Dali said she felt nauseated for the whole flight, which was just shy of eight hours long.

“I was throwing up. I was throwing up blood, too,” she testified.

Videos played at trial show Dali evading multiple security checkpoints at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 26, 2024 — two days before Thanksgiving. After trying once to get through an initial ticket check, she entered a line for flight crews and employees. Staff then directed her to the economy boarding line, where a security manager who reviewed footage said she appeared to go around the TSA check podium.

She slipped between two groups of passengers at the gate, skipping a set of face scanners, to board the plane.

“I just walked onto the airplane,” Dali testified. Jurors convicted her after less than an hour of deliberations.

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly sentenced Dali to a year of supervised release.

“It’s not punitive,” the Barack Obama appointee said. “The term of supervised release will enable working with the probation department in assisting Ms. Dali with transitioning back into the community.”

Before adjourning the hearing, Donnelly added: “Ms. Dali, I do wish you well. I hope you will work with the people who are trying to help you.”

Though she won’t have to serve any more time in New York, Dali did not walk free on Thursday. She faces state charges in Connecticut stemming from a separate instance at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, two days before the JFK flight. Prosecutors say she entered a secure departures area at Bradley and showed video footage at trial that includes Dali speaking to an agent at a ticket counter.

In February 2024, she was also discovered hiding in a bathroom in a secure zone for international travelers at Miami International Airport, after which she was detained, luggage-searched, fingerprinted and released.

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