Three women charged in attack of Delta security officer
Three women were charged on Thursday in connection to a beating of a Delta Air Lines security officer at John F. Kennedy International Airport in September, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn announced.
The women - Jordan Nixon, 21, Janessa Torres, 21 and Johara Zavala, 44 - were charged and arrested on Thursday for allegedly attacking a Delta security officer on a jetway at JFK after all three were denied boarding given their "apparent intoxication," prosecutors said.
Prosecutors allege that the three women were supposed to board a Delta flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and their reservations were changed for later that afternoon. They say that the three women ordered a total of around nine alcoholic beverages in the time they were required to wait for their flight, pointing to receipts from the airport's restaurants and bars and surveillance footage.
"A member of the Flight crew and the Captain exited the airplane and observed the three defendants; they determined that all three defendants should be denied boarding because they were acting belligerent, one of the defendants was refusing to wear her mask properly, and Zavala was visibly disoriented and possibly intoxicated," prosecutors allege.
Aircraft crew denied boarding to the three women, giving them a chance to rebook their flight, at which point prosecutors say that Nixon took the security officer's radio and hit them with it repeatedly.
A gate agent was allegedly punched in the face by Zavala after trying to assist the security officer, who later fell to the ground only to be beaten by all three women as the gate agent tried to secure more help.
A hospital treated both the gate agent and security officer for their injuries, prosecutors say.
Peter Guadagnino, representing Nixon, said that his client denied any wrongdoing.
"My client maintains her innocence and she denies the allegations as delineated in the governments indictment. She plead not guilty yesterday before Judge Scanlon and she maintains her innocence throughout the process and we are waiting to see what discovery comes our way and what if anything is recorded with respect to the incident," Guadagnino said in an email to The Hill.
"My client was charged in Queens state court regarding this incident and the case was dismissed by the prosecution," he added.
Zavala and Torres also pleaded not guilty to their charges, according to The Washington Post.
Both of their attorneys - Mia Eisner-Grynberg, representing Torres, and Jacob Barclay Mitchell, representing Zavala - declined to comment to The Hill.
-Updated at 10:16 a.m.
