Boston Marathon bomber's sister appears in court for alleged bomb threat

(Yahoo News) On Aug. 25, a New York City woman caught up in a messy child custody battle with her ex-boyfriend got into a fight on the phone with her former flame’s new girlfriend. According to the police, heated words were exchanged, and the girlfriend, who also has a child with the man, was subsequently arrested and charged with harassment after she allegedly threatened the other woman’s life.

It was an altercation that likely would have been buried in the reams of other ugly domestic disputes in New York. Except the accused was Ailina Tsarnaeva, the 24-year-old sister of alleged Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. And, according to police, she allegedly threatened the other woman by telling her, “I have people. I know people that can put a bomb where you live.”

Tsarnaeva appeared in New York Criminal Court on Tuesday. She entered a not guilty plea to two charges of aggravated harassment, a misdemeanor, for allegedly threatening her boyfriend’s 23-year-old former girlfriend, who has not been named in the dispute. (Tsarnaeva's friends have said the man is her husband, but police have referred to him as her boyfriend.)

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In addition to the latest incident in New York, Ailina Tsarnaeva is scheduled to go before a judge in November in Boston, where she’s facing jail time for allegedly lying to police investigating a counterfeit money ring back in 2010.

While she isn’t charged with passing fake bills, police say Tsarnaeva knows the identities of those behind the operation but misled investigators. A warrant was issued for her arrest last year when she skipped a court appearance, but in October 2013, she was released on $1,500 bail — though she was too broke to pay it. Her attorney, George Gormley, told the court she was “practically speaking, indigent,” and the court instead allowed her to check in weekly with a Massachusetts probation officer in lieu of posting bond.

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