FlyerTalk Forums - Puddie, Pen Purloining TSA Agent to face trial

This is making big news in Florida. The local paper is sympathetic to him, as if it's not a big crime to walk off with a Passenger's $450 pen. The Broward County DA charged Puddie with "grand theft"

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pu..._pen_trial.php

Quote:

Toussain Puddie, the former TSA screener who grabbed car dealer Rick Case's Montblanc pen at the airport last June, has been facing third-degree Grand Theft charges for months. We published a feature story on the case in December.

Now Leland Garvin, Puddie's lawyer, tells the Pulp that prosecutors informed him that their previous offer of pretrial intervention, rather than a jury trial, had been taken off the table because Puddie had taken too long to accept it.

He was offered the usual "plea and get probation offer" last year, but didn't accept it. So now this TSA Officer is standing trial. He has admitted to taking the pen, but I think he feels people will feel sorry for him because, after all, we all steal from work, don't we? (Well, this is how the TSOs think.)

The Broward New Times wrote a sympathetic article about Puddie, but in quotes from the TSA you can see the disdain they have for the passengers:

Quote:

The officer who had first announced the pen over the intercom. He pressed Vaca to say that he had taken it. "We need to get the pen back," he said. "There is a lot of sentimental value to this pen. The guy who owns it could probably buy a thousand of these pens, OK, but there is a lot of sentimental value."

Outrageous! Of what business it is it if the owner of an item can afford a thousand of something or has to save for a year to afford one? It's a disgusting way to regard the Taxpayers who are paying your salary.