Former beauty queen Marsha Gay, trades in her crown for cocaine.

 

Former pageant girl and Miss Jamaica 2008 runner up Marsha Gay, is awaiting trial for allegedly smuggling 70 pounds of cocaine. The beauty queen attempted to get through security at LAX airport  to board a flight with the contraband.

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- A JetBlue flight attendant accused of trying to sneak a suitcase full of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport and making a dramatic dash to escape says she might not have been sure what was in her bag, a spokesman for her said Thursday as prosecutors suggested she had smuggled before.

Marsha Gay Reynolds, a former Jamaican beauty queen and college track athlete, turned herself in Wednesday to face a federal drug charge.

Authorities said they found 70 pounds of cocaine in her luggage at LAX on March 18 after she was flagged for a random security screening, flung off her high heels and bolted barefoot down an upward-moving escalator. They said she ran out of the terminal and crossed the country to New York.

Reynolds' spokesman Allan Jennings, representing her family and her defense lawyer, said, "She may not have been fully aware of what was in the bags."

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Alicia Washington told a court that last week was "not the only time the defendant has engaged in this conduct." Washington didn't elaborate, and Jennings said he was surprised by the claim.

A U.S. magistrate judge set bail for Reynolds at $500,000 and then warned her parents and two friends from her church they could lose their homes if she flees. He gave prosecutors a day to appeal before Reynolds can be freed.

Reynolds, a 31-year-old Jamaican-born U.S. citizen, graduated from New York University and ran track there. She was a runner-up in the Miss Jamaica World 2008 pageant, which sends the country's representative to Miss World contests.

Leaders of the Jamaica pageant were "shocked and surprised" at news of Reynolds' arrest, said organizer Laura Butler, who doesn't know Reynolds. She said Reynolds apparently had traveled to Jamaica to compete while living in New York, as the contest allows for women of Jamaican heritage living elsewhere.