a former american airlines aircraft mechanic He was sentenced to nine years in prison on Friday after pleading guilty to trying to smuggle cocaine under the cockpit of a flight from Jamaica to New York.
Paul Belloisi, 56, of Smithtown, New York, was sentenced by US District Judge Dora Irizarry in Brooklyn in May 2023 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess cocaine, conspiracy to import cocaine, and importing cocaine.
The case arose from a routine search of American Flight 1349. 4 February, 2020 Arrival in New York John F. Kennedy International Airport, where Belloisie had been an American mechanic for more than two decades, arriving from Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Customs officials found 10 cocaine bricks weighing 25.6 pounds in an electronics compartment under the cockpit, and replaced them with fake bricks that had been sprayed with a substance that glowed under a special black light, prosecutors said.
Belloisi reportedly approached the plane before it took off again and entered the electronics compartment.
Law enforcement officers questioned him, and showed he had handled fake bricks because his gloves glowed under a black light, prosecutors said.
He also said that Beloise was carrying He carried an empty tool bag and wore a jacket large enough to hold cocaine.
The cocaine had a street value of more than $250,000.
The American was not accused of any wrongdoing.
Belloisi's attorney, David Cohen, with the law firm Cohen Foreman Barron, said his client plans to appeal his conviction.
“Given Mr. Belloisi's personal history, and the national and district-wide statistics, this was an excessive sentence, far beyond what was necessary to achieve the sentencing goals,” Cohen said in an interview.
Irizarry on Friday separately rejected Belloisi’s request for acquittal.
