Posted on 08/18/2006 6:49:08 AM PDT by PajamaTruthMafia
Described as a “crazy lady” by her own attorney, a Vermont peace activist whose bizarre behavior forced the dramatic landing of a trans-Atlantic plane in Boston Wednesday has serious mental problems and had been vacationing in Pakistan since March.
Wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt, baggy pants and white socks, a long-haired Catherine C. Mayo, 59, appeared in federal court yesterday on a charge of interfering with a flight crew on United 932 as it flew from London’s Heathrow Airport to Washington, D.C.
If convicted, Mayo faces up to 20 years behind bars.
Her lawyer, Page Kelley, said Mayo has a long history of mental illness. “She has a very serious mental illness. This case is not about terrorism,” Kelley said after court. “As you can see, she’s very agitated.”
Kelley described the plane incident as a “crazy lady with really bad timing.”
A judge ordered Mayo held until a court hearing next Thursday. During that time, she’ll undergo a psychological evaluation.
During the terrifying flight, Mayo made veiled references to al-Qaeda, Pakistan, homemade bombs and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She was cuffed after urinating on the floor, according to an FBI affidavit released yesterday.
Mayo had arrived Aug. 15 in the United Kingdom from Pakistan, where she’d been since March, her son, Josh, 31, told The Associated Press. Mayo traveled there often since finding a pen pal there before Sept. 11, 2001, the son said. The pen pal hasn’t been allowed to visit the United States, he added.
“I guess she just had a bit of a bad time on the plane, and everybody’s a little paranoid,” he said. Josh Mayo also told WHDH-TV that his mother is a “great mom” and “very supportive.”
“She might have had a stressful time in Pakistan, just getting out of Pakistan combined with a long flight,” he said.
During the flight, the crew enlisted the help of two passengers - a U.S. air marshal and a correction officer - and one of them “had become concerned that she might be acting as a diversion for a possible terrorist action,” the affidavit states. Officials said Mayo has no connection to terrorism.
Mayo told the crew she had been in Pakistan illegally and had “awful” photos “related to the people that she had been with in the mountains of Pakistan.”
In a March 18, 2003, editorial for the Pakistan Daily Times, Mayo wrote that “the folksongs of the 1960s will never be written again because of President George Bush. He has hampered the liberties of my country in the name of September 11. Songs now can only talk of patriotism they cannot mention peace.”
Indeed, it is called "Liberalism".
There's one plane I wouldn't mind her boarding, the one the federal government uses to transport prisoners.
Wow, you're really "p"'d off!
"...a Vermont peace activist..."
Ah! More important information now comes to light.
Leni
Perfecto!
Leni
Bwahahaha!
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