Jury convicts Philly woman of sneaking onto flight from New York to Paris

A jury on Thursday convicted a Philadelphia woman who sneaked onto a flight from New York to Paris without a boarding pass by slipping past security and airline gate agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport in November 2024.

The short trial of Svetlana Dali concluded with a guilty finding on a stowaway charge by jurors in federal court in Brooklyn. Jury selection and opening statements were both held on Tuesday.

The judge did not set a sentencing date.

Dali faces up to six months in prison, according to her sentencing guidelines. To date, she has been in custody for more than five months. Dali’s lawyer did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Surveillance video shows Dali, a 57-year-old Russian citizen with U.S. residency, glomming onto a group of ticketed passengers as they pass two Delta Air Lines staffers who were checking tickets and didn’t appear to notice Dali. She then strolls with the group onto an air bridge to a plane bound for Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

Dali had initially been turned away from a security checkpoint at JFK by a Transportation Security Administration official after she was unable to show a boarding pass, court documents say. But she was able to sneak into a special security lane for airline employees and, masked by a large Air Europa flight crew, made it to an area where she was screened and patted down. Then she went to the Delta gate.

On the plane, she hid in a bathroom for several hours and wasn’t discovered by Delta crew members until the plane was nearing Paris, court documents say. Crew members notified French authorities, who detained her before she entered customs at the Paris airport, 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.

During two hours of questioning by an FBI agent, Dali said she flew to France because she had to the leave the U.S., where she said police refused to protect her from people who were poisoning her, according to court documents.

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.

Prosecutors said Dali evaded security measures at two other airports before the JFK incident, and they believe she may have stowed away on another flight.

Two days before she sneaked on the Paris flight, she was able to get through TSA, identification and boarding pass checkpoints at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Connecticut, by hiding among other passengers. Authorities said she unsuccessfully tried to get on a plane and then left the airport.

In February 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents discovered Dali hiding in a bathroom at Miami International Airport, prosecutors said. Dali, who was found in a secured area in the international arrivals zone, was fingerprinted, her baggage was checked and she was escorted out of the airport, after the agents couldn’t confirm her story that she had just arrived on an Air France flight and was waiting for her husband, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said federal agents did not make any findings that Dali had illegally traveled as a stowaway to Miami, but her statements to law enforcement after her arrest in Paris appeared to indicate that she had flown into Miami illegally. Dali told authorities that she returned to the U.S. in February 2024 after spending time in Europe, but there were no records of her being admitted to the U.S. within the past five years.

Svetlana Dali's connection to Philly and two lawsuits

After her initial arrest in December 2024, Dali moved in with a friend in Philadelphia. She was prohibited from leaving Philadelphia except to attend court or meet with her lawyer or for pre-trial services in New York.

The NBC10 Investigators learned that days before sneaking onto the flight on Nov. 26, 2024, Dali filed a federal lawsuit in Philadelphia on Nov. 20, 2024. In the lawsuit, Dali accuses her ex-husband and another man of buying her for $20,000 from Russia. She also accused her ex-husband of assaulting her.

NBC10 reached out to Dali's ex-husband who referred us to an attorney who told us she didn't have any details to provide. NBC10 also reached out to the other man named in the lawsuit who said he never met Dali but is friends with her ex-husband. He said he found out about the lawsuit on the news and was surprised to see his name mentioned. He denied Dali's allegations against him.

In September 2024, Dali also filed another lawsuit – in which she represented herself – against the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) in Bethesda, Maryland, claiming she was poisoned and accusing the center of not testing her for the poison.

NBC10 reached out to WRNMMC for comment. A spokesperson said they don't comment on ongoing legal matters.

Both lawsuits listed Dali as homeless but included two Philadelphia addresses for mail. One of the addresses listed was for a home in the city's Crescentville neighborhood. On Dec. 5, 2024, a man living at the home told NBC10 he knew Dali from church and had let her stay at his house a few times. He said she was going through hardships but didn’t know any further details beyond that. It's unknown if that man is the same person that Dali was ordered to live with following her court appearance on Dec. 6, 2024.

The other address listed a home in the city's Rhawnhurst section that Dali purchased back in 2016 with her ex-husband.

According to city records, Dali and her ex-husband sold the home in 2019. A woman at the address told NBC10 through Google Translate that she had been receiving Dali’s mail but that Dali had not been coming to pick it up.