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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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TSA Screener Charged|With False Threats to LAX

LOS ANGELES (CN) - A TSA screener at Los Angeles International Airport is charged with making false threats that LAX should be evacuated, immediately after he quit his job on Tuesday, the U.S. attorney said.

Nna Alpha Onuoha [sic] is charged in a two-count criminal complaint of making false threats at LAX airport on Sept. 10, and making a threat involving interstate commerce.

An FBI agent said in an affidavit attached to the complaint that "immediately after resigning his employment with the Transportation Security Administration" on Tuesday, Onuoha left a sealed express-mail envelope at TSA headquarters at LAX addressed to a specific TSA manager.

The FBI agent also accused Onuoha of "(b) calling the TSA checkpoint at Terminal 3 at LAX a few minutes after leaving the envelope to speak with the same specified TSA manager and, upon learning that the individual was unavailable, cautioning that only the specified individual should open the 'package; that Onuoha had left; (c) in the same phone call with TSA, advising that LAX should be evacuated immediately, starting with Terminal 2; (d) subsequently calling the TSA manager for whom he had left the envelope and stating that Terminals 2, 3, and 6 needed to be evacuated immediately, and that TSA was running out of time; and (e) calling LAX police and stating that they should evacuate the entire airport."

Onuoha had worked as a TSA screener since 2006, according to the affidavit. He was suspended for a week in July after he allegedly told a 15-year-old girl that she should "cover up."

He resigned at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, returned at 12:45 p.m. with the letter, and then made the threatening phone call, the FBI agent said.

"The envelope that Onohua left for the TSA manager was cleared by the bomb squad at approximately 2:00 p.m.," according to the affidavit. "It did not contain any explosives, powders, or other suspicious substances. The envelope contained an eight-page document entitled, 'The End of America, The End of satan, we were not defeated.' The document expressed Onohua's thoughts on the incident leading to his suspension."

If convicted of both charges, Onohua faces up to 15 years in federal prison.

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