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Ms. Pichardo’s lawyers asked Judge Lanza to sentence her to 5 years of probation, or to let her serve her sentence at home, noting that she has been employed at a local restaurant since the time of her arrest.
They said Ms. Pichardo had been sexually abused as a child and had a history of mental illness.
“This is a case where alcohol, the stresses of flying, and the fact that Ms. Pichardo, while constricted to her airplane seat, was touched by a stranger, brought up all of the feelings she felt as an abused child and caused her to snap,” wrote Ms. Botello and another lawyer, Jon M. Sands.
It is not unusual for a defendant to get a tough sentence in a case like this, where passengers and flight crew members were attacked in a confined space, said Lisa Wayne, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The outrage over seeing flight attendants abused has also led prosecutors and judges to seek stiff punishments against defendants accused of such crimes, she said.
“This is the worst time that you can have this kind of case,” Ms. Wayne said.
But she questioned the purpose of incarcerating Ms. Pichardo instead of letting her serve a sentence at home where she could keep working and pay the fines imposed by the court.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-C.W.A., said sentences handed down to defendants convicted of assault should serve as a deterrent “for bad actors in the air or airports.”
“Flight attendants are aviation’s first responders, not targets for berserk passengers,” she said in a statement. “Assault is a federal crime in air travel. Period.”
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