The Indelible Bonobo Experience

A Manitoba senator and his wife walked out of a courthouse together Thursday after she pleaded guilty to causing a disturbance on an Air Canada flight. Maygan Sensenberger, who is married to Sen. Rod Zimmer, had appeared in Saskatoon court to deal with charges stemming from a ruckus on a flight from Ottawa to Saskatoon at the end of August. (via Senator’s wife pleads guilty to plane ruckus; threatening charge dropped)

• Sensenberger, 23, sat quietly next to her lawyer with her hands clasped together in her lap.
• “She realizes that a lot of people on the plane were disturbed by her behaviour,” defence lawyer Leslie Sullivan told the court.
• Sensenberger was given a 12-month suspended sentence with probation. She’ll also have to attend counselling as directed by her probation officer. The court said that could include anger management or alcohol treatment classes.
• It’s not the first time Sensenberger has been in trouble. In January 2009 she pleaded guilty to impaired driving.
• A charge of uttering threats against her husband was withdrawn.
• People on the plane gave varying accounts of the seriousness of what happened on the flight, which was just days before the couple’s first anniversary.
• One witness said Sensenberger became upset when Zimmer, 69, started feeling tightness in his chest. The couple began arguing over how seriously Zimmer, a throat cancer survivor, was taking his health.
• Sullivan told the court that Zimmer had to be taken to hospital a few days before the flight for hornet bites.
• “His lack of taking care of his health has been a constant issue between them. And after that incident, and before it, she’s been trying to get him to deal with certain health issues and his attitude is, ‘I don’t have to do that,’” said Sullivan.
• She said the couple were arguing about his health in the airport before they left Ottawa and continued to fight on the plane. Sensenberger believed Zimmer had a heart attack during the flight, said Sullivan.
• “As a result of that she became more distraught, more stressed out, and of course the fact that people on the plane said there was no problem made her even more upset because she felt that no one was taking her seriously,” said Sullivan.
• “She was significantly distraught. And I think that when you’re in that kind of situation, when you’re distraught, you have few drinks in your system, you say and do things that you might not do (in normal) circumstances.”