Federal authorities in New York filed charges against three women for assaulting two employees of Delta airlines at John F. Kennedy International Airport when they were denied access to the plane bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The women, identified as Jordan Nixon, from 21 years, Janessa Torres, 21, and Johara Zavala, of 44, were charged this Thursday for the incident reported on 22 last September.
The Department of Justice and the federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace, announced assault charges against the three women, residents of Long Island.
An employee of the airline (employee 1) alerted the flight captain that one of the suspects appeared to be intoxicated and another refused to wear the mask correctly, so the captain decided that the women could not board the plane due to disorderly behavior.
While they were in the boarding tunnel, an employee told them that they had to leave the area. One of them refused and another hit the worker with her own radio.
“The defendants refused to follow the orders from the airline security officer (employee 2) to leave the boarding tunnel and they approached him while shouting and using obscene words. One of the defendants repeatedly assaulted employee 2 with her own radio and he fell to the ground. When Employee 1 tried to assist Employee 2, one of the defendants punched Employee 1 in the face. The three defendants beat and kicked employee 2 in the face and the rest of the body while employee 2 remained on the ground. Both employees were later treated at a hospital for their injuries,” reads the statement from the Department of Justice.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned that attacking air personnel carries prison sentences.
“The FBI is the leading agency in charge of arresting those who attack, intimacy and threaten flight personnel,” said Michael J. Driscoll, FBI assistant director in charge of the investigation in New York.
“Anyone who thinks they can get away with this type of behavior undisciplined must remember that their actions are criminal and may result in jail time as a result of the filing of criminal charges. We are aggressively addressing this emerging threat and we take the cases very seriously”, stated the researcher.