Did This 'Tiara-Wearing Lunatic' Bite a Fellow Plane Passenger or Is It Just a Case of Class Envy?
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New York art curator Stacy Engman (who has a very colorful Instagram, for what it’s worth) was issued a summons for assault after allegedly biting a fellow first class passenger on a flight from Istanbul to JFK last summer. The best detail of the case: Engman, ever the elegant lady, was wearing a tiara when the biting supposedly happened
In an article perfectly headlined “Tiara-wearing lunatic bites passenger on JFK-bound flight,” the New York Post reports that the confrontation occurred when a fellow passenger confronted Engman, 38, for taking up too much room:
After the fellow passenger bristled, Engman began to raise and lower the adjustable armrest into the woman’s leg before launching into a stream of insults.
When the other woman told her to cool it and turned away, Engman bit her on the backside, according to a criminal complaint.
Prior to the biting, according to the court papers, Engman “told anyone who would listen she had been on a yacht for five days.”
As one witness puts it, she “was aggressive from the beginning of the flight.”
Engman admits that she was wearing a tiara on the flight (why wouldn’t she), but counters that she did not bite anyone. She tells W:
“It was last summer and I had been to haute couture…I was on the boat and I had my sunglass-tiara on, because I got utterly, horribly sick on the boat. I had horrible food poisoning and I had to come back early.”
…So I when I was coming back, I just remember waking up and this girl is whacking me over the head with her seat cushion. The flight attendants were immediately engaged. There was absolutely no biting. This is the most absurd thing I can imagine. And the flight resumed and everything was completely fine.”
She describes the situation to the Post similarly: “I had fallen asleep. The next thing I know, she’s whacking me over the head with the armrest. This girl was extremely aggressive.”
Engman feels that she might be a victim of class envy and describes her accuser as a “sweatshirt-clad ‘total granola girl.’”
“I need to speak to my lawyer about how we move forward,” she adds. “This is like bullying.”
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
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Image via Getty.