Chris Christie’s niece bit and kicked six deputies after she was removed from a flight for asking Latino passengers if they were drug mules.
The incident took place on Thanksgiving Day at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans after Christie’s niece, Shannon Epstein, 25, boarded her flight to New Jersey and asked a Latino family if they were “smuggling cocaine,” The Times-Picayune reports.
Epstein became increasingly more irate before takeoff which led to airline workers requesting that she be removed from the plane.
Epstein was “extremely combative” with the Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies when they tried to remove her, according to Capt. Jason Rivarde.
Rivarde told the Times-Picayune that Epstein injured six of the seven deputies that were needed to handcuff her to a wheelchair so that she could be taken to the airport security office. Rivarde said she bit one of the officers on the arm and kicked another in the groin. She also spat on the officers.
Throughout the ordeal, Rivarde said Epstein shouted that the officers will lose their jobs or end up in jail because her uncle is friends with former president Donald Trump,
Epstein was charged with six counts of battery on a police officer, three counts of disturbing the peace, one count of resisting arrest by force and one of remaining after forbidden. She was released from the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center later on Thanksgiving Day after paying $10,750 bail.
She is due back in court on Jan. 23.
[Featured Image: Chris Christie speaking at CPAC 2014 in National Harbor, Maryland [Gage Skidmore / Flickr].
