'I behaved badly,' mother in flight from hell case admits

Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 31, 2007 at midnight

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A woman arrested for repeatedly hitting her children and swearing at a flight attendant told a judge today she thought the crew was being "unjust" to her but that her actions were "unreasonable."

"I'm not proud of that," Tamera Jo Freeman, 38, said. "I behaved badly."

In a deal with prosecutors, Freeman pleaded guilty to one count of interference with a flight crew. In exchange, the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed to drop two counts of assault.

The plea deal recommends Freeman be sentenced to four to 10 months of home detention, but U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham will determine the sentence at a hearing scheduled for Jan. 18.

Freeman was arrested after the Frontier Airlines flight from San Francisco to Denver on July 16.

According to a criminal complaint, passengers saw Freeman hitting her children, then ages 4 and 2, "over and over" while on the plane.

She also was swearing at them, the complaint states. One passenger said the children were sitting on the floor, crying and trying to hide from their mother.

A member of the flight crew told police Freeman became angry when the flight attendant would not serve her another drink, and began swearing at the flight attendant and telling her to mind her own business.

After she was taken off the plane, Freeman told a police officer she had been drinking alcohol, and that she "lost it" because her kids were fighting over the window shade and her daughter had spilled her drink.

The children were turned over to other family members.

Freeman was released on $20,000 bond in September, under the condition she live with her grandmother in Oklahoma, not use alcohol and not travel by plane.

The judge also ordered that any contact with her two children must be approved by the human services officials.

Freeman told Nottingham today she is working for an electronics company in Oklahoma and soon will be doing seasonal work, helping with a pecan harvest. She said her children are not with her.

She also said she was seeing a psychiatrist for possible postpartum depression from 2005 until about three months before the incident.

She has two other children, ages 18 and 15, and has attended some college, she said.

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