Suspect in trans-Atlantic flight scare sent to mental hospital

[krispos42]

WORCESTER, Mass. -- A Vermont woman whose actions aboard a London-to-Washington flight provoked a massive security scare will be held indefinitely at a residential mental health facility in New Hampshire, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Catherine Mayo, 59, of Braintree, Vt., has been in federal custody since Aug. 17, when United Flight 923 was diverted to Boston after Mayo urinated on the floor of the cabin and made statements the pilot and crew believed were references to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.

At a hearing in federal court in Worcester on Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Timothy Hillman agreed with a defense request that Mayo be taken to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., and be put in the official custody of her son, Joshua Mayo, 31.

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Kelley praised federal prosecutors for agreeing to a compassionate plan for Mayo as she awaits trial.

"I think they're acknowledging that what she needs is treatment," she said.

Joshua Mayo has described his mother as a peace activist and said she had been returning from several months in Pakistan when she was arrested. He said she has traveled there often since making a pen pal before Sept. 11, 2001.

The scare on the flight from Heathrow to Washington's Dulles airport came just a week after London authorities said they foiled a terror plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights. Federal officials have said they have no indications that Mayo had any links to terrorism.

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