LOS ANGELES - A Jamaican national who supplied a flight attendant with nearly 60 pounds of cocaine to smuggle onboard an LAX flight was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years in prison.In January 2017, Gaston Brown, 42, was charged with two counts of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine, one count of unlawful use of a means of identification, one count of use of a counterfeit access device, and one count of aggravated identity theft.
He was found guilty on all counts a year later. According to the Department of Justice, on six occasions between October 2015 and March 2016, Brown paid JetBlue flight attendant Marsha Gay Reynolds to transport cocaine and drug money across the country.
Brown paid her to carry drugs and cash in suitcases through crewmember checkpoints at LAX and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport."As a known crewmember, Reynolds was subjected to much lighter screening at airport security checkpoints and would be able to transport the cash and cocaine without being stopped.
To evade detection by law enforcement, Brown, an illegal immigrant and convicted felon, used identities he had stolen from two mentally disabled men so he could meet Reynolds in the "sterile" area of the airport, past security," read a statement from the DOJ.