US: JFK Airport Ticket Agent Arrested After Sneaking Family Past Immigration Checks

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This guy "altered his passport", yet he was allowed to work at an airport!

"Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres said Maddy was a risk to flee because he had altered a U.S. passport of someone else to contain his photograph and had proven he could gain easy access to secure areas of the airport. The prosecutor added that Maddy has since been fired by the airline which employed him. "

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WABC_100501_airportarrest.html

US: JFK Airport Ticket Agent Arrested After Sneaking Family Past Immigration Checks (New York-AP, October 5, 2001) — A fresh focus on security lapses at U.S. airports found evidence of a weak spot Thursday when prosecutors presented the case of an airline ticket agent who sneaked three Egyptian family members past federal agents and into the United States a day before the World Trade Center attack. Mohammed Maddy, 44, sobbing and repeatedly proclaiming "I love America," stood before U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Gold as a federal prosecutor described him as a risk to flee and a danger to the community. Prosecutors in a six-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn did not link the Egyptian man who lived in Astoria, Queens, to the investigation of the Sept. 11 attack that felled the 110-story twin towers. They said Maddy succeeded on Sept. 10 to sneak his wife and two children into the country past federal immigration agents at Kennedy Airport, using his ability to move around the airport freely as an airline employee. The name of the airline was not identified in court.

A message left with the Immigration and Naturalization Service was not immediately returned.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres said Maddy was a risk to flee because he had altered a U.S. passport of someone else to contain his photograph and had proven he could gain easy access to secure areas of the airport. The prosecutor added that Maddy has since been fired by the airline which employed him.

Andres said Maddy was a danger to the community because he had threatened to kill his wife and had kicked her out of his apartment after she arrived.

"He told her he would kill her if she did not bring the children to the United States," Andres told the judge in seeking to have Maddy held without bail.

According to court papers, Maddy had tried to obtain U.S. citizenship by entering into a sham marriage in which he paid a U.S. citizen to marry him even though he was already married in Egypt.

The criminal complaint alleged that he was awaiting his final interview with the INS to obtain "lawful permanent resident" status which he qualified for because of his sham marriage.

Justine A. Harris, Maddy's court-appointed lawyer, said she consented to her client being held until she could put together a bail package that would guarantee his appearance in court.

Outside court, she declined to comment further.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), October 06, 2001


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