Ailina Tsarnaeva, sister of the Tsarnaeva brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings, appeared in court yesterday to answer charges dealing with a counterfeiting ordeal in 2011. Tsarnaeva surrendered herself to the court to clear a nearly 3 year old warrant against her.

On January 13, 2011, Tsarnaeva plead not guilty to “misleading and impeding an investigation” dealing with the passing of counterfeited money at an Applebee’s at South Bay Mall in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

While Tsarnaeva was not intimately involved in the crime, she was the owner of the van in which the criminals left the scene. The charges of “misleading and impeding an investigation” stem from the fact that when questioned, Tsarnaeva admitted that she was present in the vehicle and with the accomplices, but would not cooperate in terms of identifying the criminals. Before being charged for any crimes, Tsarnaeva told police “she did not want to be a snitch.”

Assistant Suffolk District Attorney William Champlin IV wanted the court to hold Tsarnaeva on a $1,500 bail due to her previous history of skipping out on a hearing related to the incident, but Tsarnaeva’s attorney, George Gormley, informed the judge that Tsarnaeva was not a flight risk: “This is a voluntary surrender appearance to get back in good standing with the court with a view toward defending this case. My client is practically indigent (i.e. needy/poor). She has no money, The bail of $1,500 might as well be $15,000. She’s unlikely to flee. She has a young child. She’s pregnant now.”

Upon hearing remarks from both sides, the judge decided to release Tsarnaeva without bail.

Tsarnaeva’s brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, were the two men deemed responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings this April. Tamerlan was killed when he was shot down by police officers and subsequently run over by his brother. Dzhokhar led police on a wild chase, ending several days later when police found him hiding in a boat.

Currently, Dzhokhar is being charged with brutally murdering two women and a small child; maiming, blinding and deafening scores of others; carjacking a victim and then robbing him; executing a police officer; and then attempting to murder other police officers with bombs and gunfire. If convicted, Dzhokhar faces the death penalty.

After her brother, Tamerlan, was killed in April, Ailina Tsarnaeva released the following statement: “He was a great person. I thought I knew him. I never would have expected that from him. He is a kind and loving man. The cops took his life away just the same way he took others’ lives away, if that’s even true. At the end of the day, no one knows the truth.”

Apparently, not even Dzhokhar knows the truth. Despite scrawling a confession on the inside of the boat in which he was found, Dzhokhar is currently claiming innocence for the Boston Marathon bombings. Regardless of his defense, Dzhokhar will most likely receive the death penalty for what federal prosecutors are calling “the most serious terrorist attacks against civilians on American soil since Sept, 11, 2001.”

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