Woman Accused Of Falsely Claiming Bomb In Suitcase At JFK

April 21, 2008

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A 44-year-old woman trying to board a JetBlue flight in New York City is accused of falsely claiming there was a bomb in her suitcase. The woman has denied the allegation.

Prosecutors say in a complaint filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court that Rosalinda Baez was trying to board the flight on Wednesday but that an attendant barred her because the jetway had closed.

The complaint alleges Baez told the attendant her suitcase was on the aircraft and asked, “What if I had a bomb in my bag?”

Baez says she asked: “Isn’t it a security risk to let my bag travel without the passenger when there could be a bomb in the bag?”

Source

Additional details from the NY Daily News

A globe-hopping executive was grounded by JetBlue after she threw a hissy fit at Kennedy Airport and triggered a bomb scare aboard a flight, the Daily News has learned.

Rosalinda Baez was arrested by the FBI for falsely claiming there was a bomb in her suitcase at JFK, according to a complaint filed last week in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Baez, who earns $190,000-a-year and has homes in Manhattan and Texas, was returning from a business trip in Costa Rica last Tuesday when she was blocked by a gate attendant from boarding JetBlue Flight 1061 to Austin, Tex., because the jetway had closed.

Her suitcase was already aboard the aircraft.

“What if I had a bomb in my bag?” the 44-year-old told the gate attendant, according to the federal complaint. “Well, I have a bomb in my bag, so are you guys going to turn the plane around cuz I need my bag.”

Baez then raged that the Transportation Security Administration “does not know how to do their f—— job because if it did TSA would not catch it and let it go through,” authorities said.

The flight took off anyway, but was forced to make an emergency landing in Richmond, Va., according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Dennehy.

Three hundred passengers were yanked off the aircraft and screened, while bomb-sniffing dogs checked the commercial jet, authorities said.

Meanwhile, Baez waited several hours in a Wi-Fi computer lounge at Kennedy for another flight - until she was approached by JetBlue officials and federal agents.

Baez, a Web consultant to Dell Computers, said an FBI agent questioned her about “my love of this country.”

“I was asked, have I ever had any thoughts of suicide or thoughts of doing damage to the United States,” she said.