A JetBlue flight attendant was arrested in NY on Wednesday after allegedly using her credentials to smuggle almost 70 pounds of cocaine through a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport last week.
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Marsha Gay Reynolds was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, sources said.
Reynolds arrived at LAX’s Terminal 4 around 7 p.m. Friday and provided her badge to a Transportation Security Administration officer, according to the complaint. They say Reynolds went to a secondary screening area but quickly dropped her bag, ditched a pair of Gucci heels and fled barefoot downward an upward-moving escalator.
Reynolds is charged with criminal possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute. It was unclear if she had an attorney.
The TSA has said that full screening of all employees would cost too much.
They say Reynolds then pulled out her cellular phone and made a call in a foreign language.
When the security officer arrived and attempted to escort Reynolds to the screening area, he noticed she was not following closely enough, the affidavit said. Timothy Massino, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency, told CNN that no additional information would be released as the investigation is ongoing.
LAX police soon after found 11 packages of cocaine wrapped in green cellophane and labeled, “BIG Ranch” inside one of the bags Reynolds had left behind, the affidavit says.
Mr Mrozek said prosecutors believe that Reynolds was a runner-up in Miss Jamaica World 2008.
The woman escaped the airport that day but left behind luggage stuffed with about 70 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $750,000. A representative of the pageant who identified herself as Laura, but declined to give her surname, said she “heard” Reynolds traveled from NY to enter the competition, placed third and then returned to NY.
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If convicted, Reynolds faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life.
