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TSA Agent Arrested For Stealing Traveler’s Diamond Watch

An on-duty TSA agent is charged with stealing a $7,000 watch from a JFK security checkpoint and then attempting to destroy the evidence before authorities moved in.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons in recent days. On September 4, TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger praised his own agency for its swift response in firing an on-duty TSA agent who was arrested and accused of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old traveler at LaGuardia Airport (LGA). The same day, the TSA released video footage that shows — in graphic detail — the results of TSA Agents at Denver International Airport (DEN) misusing screening equipment to provide an official reason to fondle attractive passengers.

The scandals follow a Homeland Security Inspector General’s report earlier this summer that found TSA checkpoints across the U.S. failed to detect 95 percent of the weapons used in tests to gauge the agency’s effectiveness.  Then, acting head of the TSA, Melvin Carraway was removed from his post soon after the Inspector General’s report became public.

Now, the New York Daily News reports that a double-dealing TSA official at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) isn’t helping to rehabilitate the agency’s damaged reputation. TSA screener Margo Louree-Grant was arrested last week and charged with grand larceny after police say security footage showed the screener pocketing a $7,000 diamond encrusted watch from a bin being used by a passenger at the Terminal 7 security checkpoint.

Prosecutors say the TSA screener and alleged watch thief panicked when coworkers began desperately searching for the missing watch. According to police, Louree-Grant admitted to crushing the expensive timepiece in a nearby restroom in an attempt to hide the evidence of her misdeed.

Lourre-Grant quit her job at the TSA shortly after her arrest, but still faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown seems ready to make an example of the disgraced federal official, telling reporters: “This kind of thievery will not be tolerated at our airports.”

[Photo: PAPD]

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BearX220 September 11, 2015

Only this kind of thievery -- and worse -- IS routinely tolerated at our airports... until a perp is caught red-handed. Easier for DHS to keep apologizing than to tighten up TSA recruiting and training requirements.