The flight attendant who allegedly ditched $3 million worth of cocaine at the Los Angeles airport and went on the run will be flying back to California in the custody of U.S. Marshals.
A federal judge in New York, where former beauty queen Marsha Gay Reynolds had surrendered, had approved a $500,000 bail package for her on Thursday, but prosecutors immediately appealed.
Within hours, a different judge in California had agreed to take a second look at the bail issue and said Reynolds, 32, should stay in custody until at least April 7. On Friday afternoon, a New York judge ruled Reynolds should be shipped back to L.A.
A family spokesman, Allan Jennings, said Reynolds' family is "greatly disappointed." He said the family was prepared to put up property deeds for the $500,000 bail. "They left her knowing that she was going to come home today, and then she was not able to," he said.
Reynolds is charged with kicking off her Gucci shoes, dropping two roller bags packed with 68 pounds of cocaine, and fleeing security agents during a random screening at Los Angeles International Airport last week.
She allegedly then hopped a flight to New York, where she turned herself in days later. The JetBlue employee was hit with a drug charge that carries a minimum of 10 years in prison.
Jennings, described her as a "good girl" who had never done anything wrong before now, but prosecutors said they believed last week's incident was not Reynolds' first smuggling attempt.
Authorities were still looking for an unnamed co-conspirator, who they said has ties to Jamaica and access to phony travel documents.
Jennings would not say what kind of relationship Reynolds — the 2008 Miss Jamaica World second runner-up — had with the man, but suggested he was the real culprit.
"She may not have been fully aware of what was in the bag," he said, though he was unable to say why she would have abandoned the suitcases when she was selected for a random screening.
The case has prompted calls for mandatory screening of all airport employees at LAX, where crew members are not subjected to bag checks.
