Flight attendant who ditched cocaine at LAX to plead guilty

A FORMER flight attendant and beauty queen has been accused of trying to sneak 27kg of cocaine through LA airport and made a dramatic getaway.

Marsha Gay Reynolds is accused of leaving a suitcase filled with cocaine at Los Angeles International Airport before fleeing and then turning herself into authorities. Picture: Facebook

A FORMER flight attendant accused of trying to sneak a suitcase with 27kg of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport and then making a dramatic dash to escape is set to plead guilty.

Marsha Gay Reynolds, 32, who worked for US airline JetBlue, is expected to plead guilty to conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine, according to court documents. A conviction carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison.

Reynolds, a US citizen and resident of Queens, New York, is a former Jamaican beauty queen and New York University track athlete.

Marsha Gay Reynolds. Picture: Supplied

Police said the stash weighed 27kg. Picture: Supplied

Bundles of cocaine were found in the bag she abandoned on March 18 when she flung off her high heels and bolted after being flagged for a random security screening, authorities said.

She ran down an upward-moving escalator and out of the terminal. She took a JetBlue flight the next day to New York, where she surrendered days later.

A lawyer for Reynolds said she might not have been sure what was in her bag. But a plea agreement filed on Friday said Reynolds was getting paid thousands of dollars to help smuggle drugs and money through airport security at LAX and John F Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Marsha Gay Reynolds was a former beauty queen and JetBlue flight attendant. Picture: Miss Jamaica World 2008

The court document spelled out nine different times when Reynolds helped an unnamed co-conspirator, who has not been charged, pull off the scheme to deliver drugs to customers in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

The person, who was in the US illegally, gave Reynolds the cocaine and money, and she would use her “known crew member” clearance to get through security and then give them back to the co-conspirator, according to the document.

Prosecutors previously said 70 pounds (31.8kg) of cocaine were found, but the plea agreement said it was just shy of 60 pounds (27.2kg). There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

The co-conspirator fled to Jamaica, according to the document.