Victoria Osteen fined, sued for December plane flap

From the "stories you thought you'd heard the last of" file, we bring you news that Victoria Osteen, the wife of Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen, has been fined $3,000 by the FAA for interfering with a Continental Airlines flight attendant last year — and she's facing a lawsuit by a flight attendant who claims Osteen assaulted her during the now-infamous on-board snit.

Surely you remember the story of Victoria Osteen's run-in with Continental personnel — but in case you don't, we'll run through it again. It happened when the Osteen clan boarded a plane bound for Vail, Colo., on Dec. 19 and Victoria Osteen noticed some liquid on the armrest of her first-class seat. According to the findings of an FAA investigation, she asked flight attendant Verssie Ray for napkins, then told Ray she should clean up the liquid because it was her job to do so. Ray told Osteen she would get someone else to clean the mess — a member of the aircraft cleaning team, we assume — whereupon Osteen got up and asked another flight attendant, Maria Johnson, to do the clean-up. "[Osteen] grabbed FA Johnson's right forearm and led her to [her] seat," the FAA report says. When Johnson told Osteen she'd find a member of the cleaning crew to take care of things, Osteen followed Johnson to the cockpit, where she reportedly tried to get past yet another flight attendant, Sharon Brown, by "pushing her out of the way and elbowing her in the left breast." Johnson and Brown told Osteen she could not go into the cockpit; according to the FAA, Osteen then grabbed Johnson by the arm and pulled her into the plane's galley, saying she'd had enough of Brown. The two flight attendants asked to have Osteen removed from the plane, but the family left of their own accord before they could be thrown off.

Back in December, Osteen issued a letter through Lakewood that basically said authorities had the story all wrong: She acted in a thoroughly Christian manner, she said. (That might come as a surprise to the passenger who called her "abusive" and said she acted "just like one of those divas.") And Osteen still maintains that she didn't do anything wrong — though she paid the $3,000 fine, attorney Rusty Hardin said, to put the matter to rest.

Of course, it's not put to rest: Brown has filed a civil suit against Osteen, seeking compensation for physical and mental injury she says she sustained during the encounter. Hardin dismissed the suit, calling it "absolutely ridiculous," but Reginald McKamie, Brown's lawyer, noted that several witnesses filed statements supporting Brown's story. "Victoria Osteen sent a letter out to her congregation saying she acted in a Christian-like manner," McKamie said. "We're going to let a jury of 12 people from Harris County decide whether she acted in a Christian-like manner."