Ex-American Airlines worker gets 9 years in prison for cocaine smuggling

American Airlines planes on a ramp at an Arizona airport. Photo / 123rf

A US federal judge sentenced an American Airlines mechanic to nine years in prison on September 6 for transporting cocaine into the country through the fuselage of a 737.

The man started stalking the plane as soon as it landed, federal agents said.

American Airlines flight 1349 from Jamaica arrived at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport the afternoon of February 4, 2020.

It was a fine New York winter day for those returning from a tropical getaway - dry with a low of 39 - but 30-year airline employee Paul Bryan Belloisi wasn’t supposed to have cargo on the manifest.

Belloisi, now 56, made his big move as the plane geared up to take off again, sneaking into a compartment under the aircraft while passengers boarded above him just after 7pm, federal agents said. Belloisi, the feds said, was looking for a 25-pound stash of cocaine that had been squirrelled away for him.

As Belloisi got down from the compartment, the man was met by Customs and Border Patrol agents. “What’s up, guys?” he said, according to a federal complaint.

Agents had searched the plane hours earlier and had replaced the real cocaine with fake bricks covered in black-light spray, according to court filings. They were watching as Belloisi entered the compartment, the agents said, and they scanned his hands with a black light after he climbed down, catching him glow-handed under the ultraviolet lamp.

Belloisi’s attorneys fought the charges, arguing there was no evidence he was involved in any drug-trafficking conspiracy and that the court had been too harsh.

“The sentencing went far beyond what is necessary,” his attorney, David Jason Cohen, told The Washington Post on Saturday.

Cohen wrote to the court that the sentence was far longer than similar cases, especially because he is “a first-time offender, a faithful husband and loving father of three daughters”.

Belloisi was three days past his 30th American Airlines work anniversary when the flight landed at JFK International Airport from Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Two officers with Customs and Border Patrol, Michael Robinson and Frank Morelli, selected the plane for what the judge described as a random search before adding that “Jamaica is a known transit country for narcotics coming into the United States”.

As Morelli watched crews offload the baggage, Robinson searched the plane’s exterior panels. All was normal until he opened the avionics compartment, according to the judge. The avionics compartment houses systems used for heating and cooling, navigation, communication, autopilot and collision avoidance.

Robinson moved an insulation blanket and found 10 bricks of cocaine, which prosecutors estimate would retail for US$250,000 ($404,860).

The officers replaced the drugs with sham bricks and sprayed them and the blanket with a chemical that glows under a black light. They also placed a radio transponder that would send a signal if the bricks were disturbed.

Belloisi opened the compartment about a half-hour before the plane was set to take off for San Diego, according to the agents. Belloisi took off his American Airlines jacket, revealing to officers that the jacket’s lining had been cut in the chest and held makeshift pockets, the agents said.

The jacket, along with the sham bricks and the real bricks, were all on the prosecution’s exhibit list.

A jury found Belloisi guilty of three drug counts - conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute, conspiracy to import cocaine and importation of cocaine - on May 2, 2023, following a week-long trial, according to court records.

A couple of weeks later, Cohen and the defence team filed a request for the judge to acquit.

“Upon a full review and consideration of the evidence presented to the jury at trial, it is clear that the evidence was insufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt of each of the elements of any of three charges against him,” the defence attorneys wrote.

US District Judge Dora L Irizarry denied the request, writing that prosecutors had proved their case.

Cohen said the judge restricted the defence’s ability to cross-examine witnesses and they intend to appeal the sentence based on what he said were errors by the court.

“It was a bad courtroom to be in,” Cohen said.