Flight attendant claims billionaire fondled her aboard his private plane

They weren’t friendly skies.
Billionaire former Sotheby’s owner Alfred Taubman repeatedly fondled his female flight attendant, attempted to rip off her clothing and tried to perform oral sex on her aboard his private plane, the woman charges in a $29 million lawsuit.
Nicole Rock, 38, says the married 88-year-old father of three made her six years of employment a sexual-harassment hell.
She alleges:
* Several times Taubman intentionally brushed against her breasts and forcefully kissed her.
* He forced her hand on his crotch on one occasion and tore a hole in her panty-hose when he grabbed her crotch on another.

 

ALFRED TAUBMAN $29M flight-attendant suit.

 

* During a flight, Taubman pushed Rock onto his bed in the rear cabin of his plane, “forcefully attempted to perform oral sex on her” and screamed at her, “I said, ‘Lay down!’ ”
* On several flight layovers, he asked her “in a belligerent tone, ‘How was your layover. Did you f--k anybody?’ ”
On other occasions, he allegedly tore buttons off her blouse and forced his tongue into her ear and mouth.
Taubman, who Forbes estimates is worth $2.9 billion, is sometimes credited with pioneering the building of shopping malls.
He’s also known for buying Sotheby’s in 1983, but being caught up in a price-fixing scandal at the auction house that led him to be fined $7 million and serve roughly nine months in prison in 2002-2003.
His office said the charges filed by Rock in Detroit federal court “are not true.”
“Mr. Taubman will address the complaint through the appropriate legal channels,” it added.
Rock, who is not married, was hired by Taubman’s airline company in 2005.
In December 2009, she told him she was pregnant and he angrily asked her “inappropriate and unacceptable questions” about the pregnancy and said she should have gotten an abortion, the suit charges.
He told her she “ruined her f--king life,” it said.
Rock went on disability leave that month, but Taubman told her “she was lucky to work for him and she was taking a long vacation.”
Rock gave birth in February 2010 but was forced to return to work in March, a month early, and was then allegedly pelted by Taubman with hostile comments — including that she was selfish to have her baby.
According to the complaint, Rock was awarded disability leave in February 2011 because of the “extreme stress, anxiety, fearfulness and depression” she experienced as a result of her work conditions. She never went back to work for Taubman.
The Detroit News reported that Rock sued her daughter’s father, the chief pilot for Taubman’s airplane company, for child support.

Credit : NY Post

FAA flips video guy the bird

A Delta passenger who filmed a bird strike at JFK says he’s being targeted by the embarrassed feds just because he shot the footage with his iPad during takeoff.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Grant Cardone, an LA-based business consultant whose video of birds being sucked into an engine of LA-bound Delta Flight 1063 on April 19 has become a TV and Internet sensation. The plane turned back and landed safely.
Among those who saw his video were FAA inspectors, who slapped him with an official letter complaining he took the video illegally because portable electronic devices must be turned off during “critical” phases of a flight, such as takeoffs, and can’t be used during an in-flight emergency.

“Your failure to comply with flight attendant instructions during a critical phase of flight and an aircraft emergency could have affected the safe outcome of the flight,” the letter says.
Cardone doesn’t buy that.
“If there is even a minute chance that an iPad could take a plane down then it is the FAA’s obligation to ban the devices from flights or require the airlines to confiscate them when you check in,” he said.
The FAA said Cardone, 54, won’t be fined — but the letter “will be made a matter of record for a period of two years.”
“A record with whom?” asked Cardone, a frequent flier who is worried that he’s on some no-fly list. He said the letter “has a lot of Big Brother in it.

Credit - NY Post

Slain U.S. Airways flight attendant met killer at Mexico City bar: cops

Security footage showed Nick Aaronson returning to his hotel room with suspected murderer

Police say Jose Manuel Ramire killed Aaronson in his Mexico City hotel room and then robbed him.

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Aaronson's body was flown back to Phoenix on its way to his mother's home in California on Wednesday.

The 20-year-old suspect in the brutal slaying of a U.S. Airways flight attendant in Mexico City last week met his victim at a bar and then went with him to his hotel, where he beat, robbed and strangled the young Phoenix native, authorities say.

Front desk workers at the Hilton Hotel Mexico City may have been the last to see Nick Aaronson alive, as security footage showed him signing his suspected killer, Jose Luis Ramirez, in as a guest early Friday morning, police said.

Hotel workers found Aaronson's bound body lying next to the bed in his room some 24 hours later.

Ramirez, who was arrested on Sunday, admitted to entering the 27-year-old's room and beating him, but denied strangling him with a belt and robbing him, CNN reported.

Police say the alleged killer, who has served time for robbery, tried to throw off investigators by shaving his head after the deadly attack.

But the ex-con wasn't clever about covering his tracks. Police busted him near the same pub where Aaronson first picked him up, according to Reuters.

Ramirez is facing homicide and robbery charges.

Meanwhile, hundreds of flight attendants, pilots, friends and other mourners gathered on the runway at Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport on Wednesday to pay tribute to the beloved young attendant as his body arrived on a flight from Mexico City.

"He was the light of everybody's life. He was the firework in everybody's heart. He made everyone smile. He was an amazing caring person," his boyfriend, Kalven Smith, told a local ABC affiliate.