Saturday, May 19, 2018

10 TSA Crimes and Acts of Misconduct


Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

On and off the job, some Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) agents, tasked with ensuring airline passenger safety, have been charged with, or convicted of, crimes or other misconduct. Many citizens already distrust TSA agents, who sometimes make bad judgments in the line of duty and whose “pat-downs,” many passengers believe, are sometimes tantamount to sexual assault. These 10 TSA crimes and acts of misconduct tend to further erode citizens' confidence in the Department of Homeland Security agency.

10 Improper Attempted Pat-down of Three-Year-Old

Not all TSA agents' conduct is criminal. Some of their acts are simply improper. Nevertheless, even such misconduct can be traumatic and humiliating. TSA agents at a security checkpoint at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport decided that, because three-year-old Lucy Forck was in a wheelchair, they needed to subject her to a pat-down. A victim of spina bifida, Lucy is confined to a wheelchair because she's disabled.



When Lucy's mother began recording the agents with a video camera, they told her doing so was “illegal,” but her husband, an attorney, understood their claim was untrue, so she continued to record them. Already distraught, Lucy became “inconsolable” when the agents took her stuffed animal, Lamby, away from her during the 45-minute incident.

Although, ultimately, the agents did not pat Lucy down, their conduct did not accord with TSA policy, the agency said, and admitted that requiring the pat-down of a three-year-old was “not proper procedure.” (LINK 1)

9 Improper Strip Searches

Leonore Zimmerman, 85, and Ruth Sherman, 89, were humiliated when TSA agents at New York's JFK International Airport strip searched them. Afraid screening might “interfere with her defibrillator,” Zimmerman asked not to undergo the procedure. She was then escorted to a “private room,” wherein she was compelled to strip, apparently so her back brace could be “scanned.” Sherman said agents forced her to lower her pants so they “could see her colostomy bag.”



Leonore Zimmerman (left)

Replying to a letter from state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Betsy Markey denied that Zimmerman had been strip-searched and contended that Sherman had “voluntarily” lowered her pants. She did admit the agents' actions violated TSA policy, though, and that it is “not standard operating procedure for colostomy devices to be visually inspected.” (LINK 2)
8 Stealing and Taking Bribes

It wasn't enough for TSA supervisor Michael Arato simply to steal from airline passengers. He also accepted “kickbacks” from an agent he supervised. Most of the passengers from whom he and his confederate stole “cash and other valuables” were female “foreigners” who didn't speak English well.

His subordinate stole up to $30,000 during a year's time, while Arato turned a blind eye to the agent's thefts. In addition, Arato admitted stealing as much as $400 per shift from passengers at his checkpoint inside Newark Liberty International Airport's Terminal B and to accepting thousands of dollars in bribes. The thieves hid the stolen cash and valuables inside X-ray machine drawers or in the lost-and-found to retrieve later.

Authorities began to suspect Arato when Air India passengers complained their possessions were missing after agents at Arato's checkpoint had manually inspected their luggage. One of Arato's subordinates cooperated with authorities, who videotaped Arato accepting bribes. (LINK 3)

Although he could have been sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine, Arato, who pleaded guilty in June 2011, received only 2 ½ years. (LINK 4)

His subordinate, Al Raimi, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced at a later date. He was ordered to pay $24,150 in restitution and a $3,000 fine. He also was sentenced to six months of house arrest. (LINK 5)

7 Extortion and Bribery

In exchange for bribes, TSA agent Brigitte Jones, 48, participated in a drug trafficking operation, letting couriers transport Oxycodone through the Westchester County Airport, in Florida, where she worked. The airport and others in Florida were part of a drug trafficking network involving other airports in Connecticut and New York. Twenty people were arrested in connection with the operation. Police initiated an investigation of the agents after receiving a tip that an “individual” was transporting the pills to Connecticut.



In 2011, Jones pleaded guilty to one count of “extortion under color of right” and to one count of “receipt of a bribe by a public official.” The former crime could have landed her in prison for 20 years. The latter offense could have resulted in her imprisonment for 15 years. Instead, Jones received a 45-month prison sentence, which is to be followed by three years of supervised release. She served her sentence in a federal prison. (LINK 6)

6 Fraud



TSA agent Marc Bess

Accumulating free leave from his colleagues was too good an opportunity for 42-year-old TSA agent Marc Bess to pass up. Found eligible to accept his compassionate coworkers' leave pay after pretending to have abdominal cancer, Bess collected 2,240 hours of their “paid vacation time,” which amounted to “$60,000 in salary and benefits,” or “more than a year's worth of leave pay.” To substantiate his phony illness, he submitted false statements to the TSA, claiming he was being treated for the disease and forging a doctor's name on the forms. After five years, he was caught when he mistakenly “faked a doctor's note” supposedly written by a “physician who had died months earlier.” In January 2015, Bess resigned from the TSA and may be sentenced to prison. (LINK 7)

5 Invasion of Privacy

On multiple occasions, TSA agent Daniel Boykin, 33, videotaped and photographed a female colleague while she was using the bathroom. Police found over 90 videos and 1,500 photographs of her on Boykin's computer and telephone. When the female TSA agent saw a picture of herself on his phone, she filed a complaint. Arrested, Boykin was charged with unlawful photography, aggravated burglary, and violation of the computer act. He pleaded guilty to all three charges.



TSA agent Daniel Boykin

Assistant District Attorney Amy Hunter characterized Boykin's actions as one of the most flagrant invasion of privacy cases she'd ever encountered. Judge Randall Wyatt agreed, calling Boykin's behavior “egregious.” Boykin was sentenced to five and a half years of probation and will be monitored by global positioning satellite technology. The TSA also terminated him. (LINK 8)

4 Harassment and Misdemeanor-assault



Steven Trivett, an off-duty American Airlines pilot, was on his way out of New York's JFK International Airport's Terminal 8 when he overheard a “profanity-laced conversation” that included racial slurs. He told the TSA agents to “conduct themselves more professionally in uniform.” One of the agents told him to “mind your own business.” Trivett told the agent that he himself is both a TSA officer and “an armed pilot.” He reached for the identification tags on TSA agent Lateisha El, who responded by throwing a cup of coffee on him and pushing him. The pilot was not hurt, but El was ticketed for “harassment and misdemeanor-assault.” (LINK 9)

3 Voyeurism

Airline passenger John Comes was at Washington's Sea-Tac Airport to catch a flight to Florida when he observed a man “standing really close to the woman in front of him” as they rode an escalator. When Comes saw a light on the man's phone, he realized the man was taking photographs up the woman's skirt. By the time Comes understood what was happening, both the man and his victim were gone. Comes reported the incident to Port of Seattle Police and tweeted the TSA. The police and TSA agents put the alleged voyeur, TSA agent Nicholas Fernandez, under surveillance. According to King County, Washington, prosecutors, after Fernandez “left a TSA checkpoint during a break at 11:15 a. m.,” he took an “escalator to a lower level of the airport,” photographing the woman in the manner Comes had described. (LINK 10)



TSA agent Nicholas Fernandez

Fernandez, 29, was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of voyeurism, “a class C felony that carries five years of jail time.” He was booked into the King County Regional Justice Center, where he remained in lieu of a “combined bond of $27,500.” (LINK 11)

2 Groping

A male TSA agent fond of fondling male passengers worked out a scheme with a female colleague. According to investigative reporter Brian Maass, the male agent would tip off his female counterpart when he saw a male passenger he regarded as “attractive.” Then, she'd alert the “screening computer” that the male passenger was female. As a result, the “scanning machine” would indicate “an anomaly in the genital area,” which allowed the male agent to conduct a pat-down search of the male passenger's genitals. A TSA investigator observed the male agent use the palms of his hands to conduct one of the pat-downs, a procedure that contradicts TSA policy. The female agent admitted providing this service to her male colleague 10 times. (LINK 12)

1 Sexual Assault

A male TSA agent at New York's LaGuardia Airport was arrested for sexually assaulting a 22-year-old female Korean foreign exchange student with poor English skills. He ordered her to follow him, saying she'd been selected for additional screening to determine whether she was armed with a knife or a gun. The agent escorted her to a bathroom, where he allegedly made her lift her shirt, touched her breasts, and stuck his hand down her shorts.




 The woman filed a complaint, and the agent was arrested after he was identified in a photo line-up. Similar allegations of sexual abuse at Dulles International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Denver International Airport, Miami International Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport suggest the woman's ordeal is more commonplace than many may have thought. (LINK 13)





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