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Mid-Flight Sexual Play Violates the Patriot Act

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Deborah:
This would be funny if the consequences this couple is facing weren't so serious: :rofl:

Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 19:48:15 -0600
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http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/1 ... b8xln.html
Mid-flight sexual play lands US couple afoul of anti-terrorism law
Nov 14 6:53 PM US/Eastern

A couple's ill-concealed sexual play aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles got them charged with violating the Patriot Act, intended for terrorist acts, and could land them in jail for 20 years. According to their indictment, Carl Persing and Dawn Sewell were allegedly snuggling and kissing inappropriately, "making other passengers uncomfortable," when a flight attendant asked them to stop.

"Persing was observed nuzzling or kissing Sewell on the neck, and ... with his face pressed against Sewell's vaginal area. During these actions, Sewell was observed smiling," reads the indictment filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On a second warning from the flight attendant, Persing snapped back threatening the flight attendant with "serious consequences" if he did not leave them alone.
The comment was enough to have the couple, both in their early 40s, arrested when the plane reached its destination in Raleigh, North Carolina, and charged with obstructing a flight attendant and with criminal association.
They have been placed under legal surveillance until their trial on February 5. If found guilty, they both could be sent to jail for up to 20 years.
Persing's lawyer William Peregoy said his client was not feeling well when he placed his head on his companion's lap, and that he only threatened the flight attendant with reporting him to his superiors on landing.

Oz girl:
please say this is a joke!

Anonymous:
Okay, that HAS to be the most embarassing thing to happen to those people.. international coverage of one's face in a vagina.. priceless.

Deborah:
Nope, not satire.

TSA makes a federal case out of, umm , 'country matters'
By John Bogert

Funny how a smutty little exchange from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" can link a Southwest Airlines flight from LAX to North Carolina, the Transportation Security Administration and a Lakewood couple who -- and I don't believe they invented this -- behaved like horn toads at 28,000 feet.

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
 
Ophelia: No, my Lord!

Hamlet: I mean, my head in your lap.

Ophelia: Ay, my lord.

Hamlet: Did you think I meant country matters?

It's always country matters, isn't it? That or money which brings us low.

Take the less-than-circumspect Carl Warren Persing and his live-in girlfriend, Dawn Elizabeth Sewell. Use of their middle names should be a criminal tipoff. It's not for nothing that we know the Harvey in Lee Oswald.

This amorous pair, according to a front-page story by esteemed colleague Doug Irving, are accused in a federal indictment of engaging in "overt sexual activity" on the Sept. 15 flight and with bullying a flight attendant. Persing, described as half of a 40-ish "run-of-the-mill" couple, allegedly embraced Ms. Sewell and pressed his face into her lap. Which I believe falls under Article IV, the "country matters" section of the Patriot Act.

If they had only left it at that and just obeyed the flight attendant, none of this would have happened. But no. Persing, a longshoreman, allegedly went on to commit a serious crime.

Mind you, it was a crime that until 9-11 might not have been considered a crime at all. In that bygone halcyon era, a man seen aboard an aircraft "nuzzling or kissing ... and acting in a manner that made other passengers uncomfortable" might have been dismissed as a jerk.

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By the way, this information comes from the FBI, which -- because they have caught all the murderers, extortionists and kidnappers -- finally has free time to work on cases of vital national importance.

The FBI report also notes that, "During these actions, Ms. Sewell was observed smiling." Face it. This is a frightening time, a time of zero tolerance and terrorism. Terrorism! That and wanton women wearing smiles on airplanes.

Despite the attendant's efforts to quell the smiling and nuzzling, the loutish Persing told the man to, "Get out of my face." Actually, I am assuming that he was talking to the flight attendant at this point and not his girlfriend's lap.
 
Anyway, Persing's attorney claims that his client was only trying to take a nap and became annoyed when the attendant kept rousing him. After a second reprimand, Persing reportedly said, "I'm going to give you one warning to get out of my face." Then, when he was refused alcohol, "There is going to be a serious confrontation between you and me."

At that point, Persing might as well have been waving a gun and screaming, "Death to America!" In a humorless time without gradations, a man (even a jerk) accused of "diverting and delaying" a flight attendant is automatically an enemy of the state.

Mind you, five years ago they missed the Arab men with the box cutters, but they're on the case now. Last week a woman on a Delta flight out of Burlington, Vt., claimed that she was removed from a flight because she was breastfeeding her baby. Meanwhile, Los Angeles comic Tom Irwin finds himself on the dreaded TSA watch list (he thinks) because his humor offended someone. This while my college-age daughter remains listed for carrying a small knife in her backpack. And never mind that the TSA knew immediately that it was there by accident. By the way, paying a TSA fine doesn't get you unlisted.

There used to be a saying in America, one used when somebody was blowing a small incident out of proportion. We'd say, "Don't make a federal case out of it!"

For tacky in-flight behavior, the government of the United States of America is putting two of its citizens on trial in February. The maximum penalty? Twenty years in federal prison. http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/columni ... page=2&c=y[/url]

On the leg of the Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to RDU, Newton said, Persing wasn't feeling well and laid his head in Sewell's lap and went to sleep.

Newton said a male flight attendant, who is not identified in court records, mistook that scene for something sexual and repeatedly roused Persing. Then, Newton said, the flight attendant humiliated the couple by loudly declaring they would not be served alcohol because of their previous behavior. Newton said Persing threatened to report the flight attendant to Southwest officials.

Newton said a fellow passenger will testify about overhearing the flight attendant say to another that they should call law enforcement to avoid a complaint being filed.

That was what happened, according to Newton: The FBI was called when the plane landed, Persing and Sewell were arrested and the couple spent three days in jail.

Federal authorities describe events much differently in court records.

The indictment says the couple repeatedly engaged in "overt sexual activity in the cabin of the plane to such an extent that the flight attendant had to direct them to stop."

An FBI agent's affidavit states that the couple was embracing and kissing in a way that made other passengers uncomfortable. The affidavit also states that Persing was seen kissing Sewell's collarbone, neck and near her breast, as well as placing his face in her lap. After the flight attendant again asked the couple to stop, Persing told him to "get out of my face" and called him a "punk."

The flight attendant refused to serve them alcohol, and Persing retorted that they were going to have a "serious confrontation" when they got off the plane, according to the investigator's affidavit.

Newton said she doesn't deny Persing might have been affectionate to Sewell during the flight but wonders why that is a crime. Newton said Persing has no previous criminal record and served in the U.S. Navy, including during the Persian Gulf War.

She said she and co-counsel Bill Peregoy of Wilmington plan to ask a judge to dismiss the charges because the trial was delayed. http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/510606.html

The Affidavit and Indictment
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/crim ... 06ind.html

Oz girl:
it truly is a world gone mad!

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