NEW YORK (AP) — The woman who was able to sneak onto a New York-to-Paris flight without a boarding pass late last year was able to get on the plane by glomming onto a group of ticketed passengers as they passed gate agents, new surveillance video shows.
The video, provided by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to The Associated Press on Wednesday after a records request, shows Svetlana Dali slipping by two gate agents who were checking boarding passes and strolling onto an airbridge along with a group of other passengers.
Dali has pleaded not guilty to a stowaway charge over the incident last November. Her trial is set to begin next month but prosecutors and her lawyer have said they are trying to work toward a plea deal. Her attorney did not return a voicemail seeking comment on Wednesday.
According to court documents, Dali had initially been turned away from an security checkpoint at JFK International Airport by a Transportation Security Administration official after she was unable to show a boarding pass.
Dali, a 57-year-old Russian citizen with U.S. residency, then sneaked into a special security lane for airline employees, masked by a large Air Europa flight crew, and made it into a screening area where agents were inspecting bags and patting down travelers. A second video provided to AP by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey shows Dali going through screening and getting patted down.
From there, Dali walked onto a Delta Air Lines flight bound for Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. The surveillance video shows Dali at the gate — with a gray hood covering her head, carrying what appears to be a bag draped over her left arm and an oversized backpack slung over her shoulders — joining a group of boarding passengers and slipping past two Delta staffers who were checking tickets.
The staffers did not appear to notice Dali as she passed and joined a group of ticketed passengers who were allowed to board the plane.
Delta crew members realized Dali was an unauthorized passenger while the plane was in the air and notified French authorities, who detained her before she entered customs, according to court documents.
She was eventually flown back to New York and admitted to authorities that she got on the plane without a ticket and that she intentionally evaded security and Delta employees so she could avoid buying a ticket, court records said.
Dali was initially released after her arrest with electric monitoring but then was arrested again in Buffalo, New York, after she cut off the monitor and tried to enter Canada.
She is being held in a federal lockup in Brooklyn, records show.
FILE - A vehicle stops at Terminal 1 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Feb. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
President Donald Trump said Thursday Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general.
Trump in a social media post named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick.
It marks the end of a contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.
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The Republican had only nice things to say about Bondi in an emailed statement, noting a drop in violent crime during her tenure and her Justice Department’s responsiveness to congressional oversight requests.
“The Judiciary Committee stands ready to advance President Trump’s next Attorney General nominee,” Grassley said.
The attorney general was facing a subpoena to appear before the House Oversight Committee on April 14 as lawmakers look into how the Department of Justice handled the release of the case files on Jeffrey Epstein.
The chair of the committee, Rep. James Comer, said in a statement that he would survey Republicans on the committee on whether they still wanted to enforce the subpoena.
Democrats quickly called on the committee to follow through on the subpoena. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement that Bondi “will not escape accountability and remains legally obligated to appear before our Committee under oath.”
Bondi was subpoenaed last month to appear before the Republican-led Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and face questions over the Justice Department’s sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and release of the related files.
Mace, who sits on the committee, said in a statement Thursday that Bondi “will be appearing” in two weeks because the “DOJ still hasn’t complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”
Past attorney generals generally took pains to maintain an arm’s-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions.
But Bondi postured herself as Trump’s chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters.
She called for an end to the “weaponization” of law enforcement that she said occurred under the Biden administration, though her critics said she was the one who had politicized the agency to do the president’s bidding.
The Justice Department’s review and release of Epstein files frustrated members of Congress, who accused the department of hiding certain documents, over-redacting files and, in other cases, failing to redact sensitive information about the victims.
The department denied that it redacted documents in order to protect people and that it improperly withheld certain material. Still, it caused a series of headaches for the Trump administration.
“Thank you to President Trump for the trust and the opportunity to serve as Acting Attorney General,” Blanche wrote in a post on X, after saying that Bondi led the department with “strength and conviction.”
“We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe,” Blanche said.
Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who worked as Trump’s criminal defense attorney in two cases brought by the department under President Joe Biden’s administration.
He was also a key figure on the president’s defense team in the hush money case against Trump in New York.
Blanche became second in command behind Bondi at the Justice Department last year.
“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, after saying she’s been a “loyal friend.”
Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will serve as acting attorney general.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, in response to earlier reports that President Donald Trump was considering ousting Attorney General Pam Bondi, said in a statement Thursday: “I welcome it.”
“Bondi handled the Epstein Files in a terrible manner and seriously undermined President Trump,” said Mace in the statement, whose long been critical of the justice department over the release and review of the Jefferey Epstein files.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.
The announcement follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation that made Bondi the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump. She also struggled to satisfy Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected by judges or grand juries.
The former Florida attorney general came into office last year pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.
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FILE - Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks with reporters during a news conference at the Department of Justice, Nov. 19, 2025, in Washington, as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, listens. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, file)
FILE - Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche meets with reporters in Washington, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
FILE - Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
