The woman labeled a thief by a fellow flyer for taking his iPhone charger from his seat insists she’s a victim of no-good-deed-goes-unpunished – and now she is facing backlash after his social media shaming.
Vanessa Koliver identified herself as the woman in the now-viral footage, revealing she’d received death threats after the altercation was ‘taken out of context’ and shared online.
‘This charger was found on the ground of an empty flight where we were told to remove all possessions because we didn’t know if we were getting back on the same flight due to technical issues,’ she said in a TikTok video.
Koliver said she was seated toward the back of the plane, so was one of the final people to disembark. She claims she took the charger from the ground beneath an empty seat in front of her, and tried to hand it over to crew.
‘I told the stewardess, and she would not take it because they cannot be liable for passenger possessions,’ she said.
Whie the initial video suggested Koliver was a thief who unplugged the charger from the seat and tried to sneak it into her bag, she insists there was ‘no stealthy behavior’ and that she in fact made it very obvious to the people around her what she was doing.
‘I picked it up off the ground,’ she said. ‘Off the ground. I did not unplug it.’
Koliver said she was traveling with her 20 pound cat and a mountain of luggage, explaining that over the course of the three-hour delay before they were allowed back onto the plane, she put the charger away in her bag.
When she reboarded the plane, the passenger, Eddie Orellano, was already ‘agitated’ and ‘getting in people’s faces’ as they walked by.
‘When I got on, I immediately told him I would get him his charger, but just to give me a second,’ she said.
‘Several hours had passed… it was honestly the last thing on my mind. I did not even know where this charger was. What I was worried about was my 20 pound cat.
‘I wanted to find a safe place to set my cat down and my luggage, and also get a little bit of distance from this very aggressive, eratic man, for my own safety.’
Koliver accepted that she ‘could have acted more gracefully’ given Orellano was so worked up about the situation.
‘But I was really stressed out, exhausted, worried about my cat, out of breath… eight hours at the airport only to be recorded and yelled at,’ she said.
‘I totally acted imperfectly, as most people do under duress.’
Koliver said she’d received death threats and harassment since the initial video went viral, which is what prompted her to share her side of the story.
‘So many of you are quick to believe I’m some sort of evil villain over a phone charger on the ground of an empty flight that I did attempt to hand to crew.
‘This man is yelling in my face the second I came on board, of course I didn’t greet him with a smile.’
In the original video shared by Orellano online, he claimd he’d left the Apple iPhone charger plugged into his seat when the pilot let passengers off to stretch their legs due to delays.
He said a fellow passenger told him a blonde woman had unplugged the charger and rolled it up and put it in her bag, prompting him to angrily confront her when they reboarded.
‘Excuse me, did you take my charger?’ he askedasshe passed him in the aisle.
‘Yeah, I have it,’ she immediately responded.
‘Why would you take my charger?’ he asked her. ‘Don’t steal things. You can’t take things without asking.’
‘You’re gonna be famous, you’re gonna be on TikTok.’
‘Because we got off the flight,’ she said, adding, ‘It’s OK, you’re gonna get it back.’
A woman sitting next to Orellano said, ‘Ed, it’s okay, sit down. Ed, I don’t want to get kicked off this flight. Oh my God, Ed, please.’