Russian Stowaway Appeals NYC Conviction After Hiding in Plane Lavatory on Paris Flight

Svetlana Dali argues a judge wrongly barred evidence of her poisoning delusions at trial. She has since been arrested for boarding a second flight without a ticket.

Russian Stowaway Challenges Conviction, Claims Jury Was Denied Key Mental State Evidence

A Second Circuit panel heard arguments Wednesday from Svetlana Dali, a Russian permanent U.S. resident convicted of sneaking onto a 2024 Delta flight from New York to Paris without a boarding pass or passport, according to Courthouse News Service.

Dali boarded the red-eye from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Charles de Gaulle Airport and spent nearly the entire flight concealed in a lavatory. Flight attendants checked on her repeatedly after she said she was vomiting, offering water and ginger ale. She was discovered only when a turbulent landing forced attendants to require all passengers to be seated — at which point Dali could not produce a seat assignment.

A Brooklyn jury found her guilty of one count of knowingly and intentionally stowing away on an aircraft. She was sentenced to time served.

Appeal centers on excluded evidence

At the heart of her appeal is a claim that the trial judge improperly excluded evidence that Dali believed she was being poisoned by the U.S. government — a delusion her attorneys say could have explained behavior prosecutors characterized as deliberately evasive.

"An insanity defense would be arguing, 'I committed this crime, I knew what I was doing was unlawful, but I should be excused from committing the crime because of mental illness,'" said Siobhan Atkins, Dali's public defender. This case, Atkins argued, is different: the delusion was relevant not to excuse the act but to challenge the government's portrayal of intent.

U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Park, a Donald Trump appointee, was skeptical. "That sounds kind of like an insanity defense," he told Atkins on Wednesday. Park also pressed on the distinction between a belief and a diagnosis, asking whether the dispute amounted to "a wording question — believed she was being poisoned versus delusional?"

Prosecution: strategic choice, overwhelming evidence

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brooke Theodora argued that Dali's legal team had made a deliberate decision to waive the insanity defense at trial, and could not now reintroduce the same mental health evidence through a different framing.

"That was a strategic decision on counsel's part, and it was one that avoided the requirements of the Insanity Defense Reform Act," Theodora told the court. She added that even if the exclusion of the evidence had been an error, it was a harmless one: Dali herself took the stand during her one-day trial on May 21, 2025, and told jurors through a Russian interpreter she "just walked onto the airplane." The jury deliberated for less than an hour before convicting her.

Theodora told the panel Dali "got up there and testified to basically every element of this crime."

Second arrest in February

Dali's situation has since grown more complicated. She was arrested in February of this year for allegedly boarding another flight without authorization — this time bound for Milan. A source with knowledge of the matter told Courthouse News that Dali is believed to still be in Italy. Her legal team declined to comment on the second arrest, and it remains unclear whether charges have been filed in connection with that incident.

Panel has not yet ruled

Joining Park on the bench were Senior U.S. Circuit Judge John Walker, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and U.S. District Judge Philip Halpern, a Trump appointee sitting in the Southern District of New York. The three-judge panel did not issue a ruling following Wednesday's oral arguments.

Source: Courthouse News Service