Mother accused of flight from hell will stay in jail

Stuart Steers and Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, July 20, 2007

A mother accused of cursing at and beating her young children and hurling a drink at a flight attendant on a Frontier Airlines flight appeared in federal court this afternoon and was ordered held until July 26.

Tamera Jo Freeman, 38, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, was arrested Monday after Flight 108 from San Francisco landed at Denver International Airport. She is charged with assaulting her children and interfering with a flight crew, according to federal court documents.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Boyd Boland ordered Freeman held in the Jefferson County Jail pending her next hearing. Her court-appointed attorney asked that she be released on bond, but the judge said no.

Prosecutors said they would be willing to allow Freeman to stay in a halfway house, but none in the area had room.

Her 2-year-old son and 4-year-old were returned to California to be with relatives. Freeman didn't speak in court, and because she is in federal custody, she could not be reached for comment.

Passengers told the FBI that Freeman was drinking heavily before and during the flight and alternated between cursing and terrorizing or neglecting her 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter because they were interfering with her watching a movie.

"Freeman appeared intoxicated and violent toward her children before she boarded the flight in San Francisco," according to an FBI statement supporting the criminal complaint.

Passengers said the children spent the nearly two-hour ordeal trying to hide on the floor in the corner, scared and crying, according to the complaint.

The mother admitted to the FBI that she "lost it" on the plane, saying "she had slapped her children during the flight because they were fighting over the window shade and had spilled Freeman's drink," according to the FBI complaint.

She also acknowledged drinking "several alcoholic beverages on the flight."

Before boarding the flight in San Francisco, Freeman dropped the 2-year-old on his back and head because he didn't want to go to the bathroom with her, passenger Katie Shanahan told the FBI.

"Freeman left her son on the ground crying for several minutes," Shanahan recounted, according to court records.

Passenger Amy Grant "observed Freeman hitting her children repeatedly and yelling profanities at her children and the flight attendants," according to the complaint. "She observed Freeman swing with an opened hand down at the children and heard the children crying after being struck."

Several passengers complained to the flight crew about the mother's repeated slapping and punching of the children during the flight, court records stated. When flight attendant Amy Fleming tried to intervene, Freeman told her to "mind her own business" and demanded another drink, court records stated. When Fleming refused to serve Freeman, the mother cursed the flight attendant and allegedly threw a drink that landed at Fleming's feet, witnesses told the FBI.

Freeman then followed Fleming into the common area of the plane, "yelling and pointing her finger."

Fleming felt so threatened, she told the FBI, that she "moved into a defensive stance." She then talked Freeman into returning to her seat.

The flight attendant asked a corrections officer who happened to be on the plane to sit near Freeman, the complaint stated. Then the attendant grabbed some duct tape and "had to physically stand near Freeman to prevent her from causing more problems on the flight or further assaulting her children," the FBI wrote.

After the flight attendant took action, the captain radioed ahead to have Denver police meet the plane.

During a Wednesday hearing, Freeman requested a public defender and the judge agreed to appoint one. Her children were placed in the custody of Denver social services until a relative can fly from San Francisco to take them home, according to CBS 4 News.