Mother Who Gave Birth on Jet Gets 6 Months in Jail

A woman was sentenced today to six months in a Staten Island, N.Y., jail for abandoning her newborn daughter in a jetliner bathroom.

Christina Maria LoCasto, 24, of Staten Island pleaded no contest May 25 to one count of felony child endangerment in a plea bargain promising her no more than a year in county jail. She could have been sentenced to six years in prison if the case had been tried.

San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Margaret Kemp rejected a plea by LoCasto’s attorney, Richard Bennett, and the advice of the county Probation Department. Both had called for probation.

Prosecutor Stephen Wagstaffe told the court that he felt LoCasto should serve time.

“I think she ought to be punished,” he said, as a grim, pale LoCasto listened. “Any consideration of keeping the family together ought to be outweighed by the danger she created for the child.”

Kemp said it appeared LoCasto simply wanted the baby to “go away” and said she found it hard to believe that the infant had survived the ordeal.

The sentence also calls for an additional 2 1/2 years probation and fines totaling about $800.

The child, named Alyssa, was found in the restroom of a United Airlines DC-10 after it landed at San Francisco International Airport on July 13, 1988.

LoCasto, who turned herself in the next day, had secretly given birth just before the plane took off from the Newark, N.J., airport. Her husband, Louis LoCasto, told authorities that the couple had been having problems when Alyssa was conceived and that he had no idea his wife was pregnant prior.

The child is in the custody of her grandparents, John and Frances LoCasto, also of Staten Island.