Joe Bangay, 37, was processing passengers around 10:30 p.m. Saturday when he allegedly took $61 in cash out of the man’s wallet, police say, according to The New York Post.
When the victim,26, realized his cash was gone, he alerted Port Authority police immediately and filed a complaint, sources say.
Surveillance footage showed a TSA screener opening the wallet and pocketing the money, Joe Pentangelo, a Port Authoritiy spokesman told reporters, RT.com reports. Local media identified Bangay, a resident of Queens, as the suspect.
Bangay was arrested and charged with larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, NJ.com reports.
TSA spokesman Mike England said the TSA planned to fire Bangay on Monday. NJ.com tried to contact Bangay on Sunday, but he was unavailable.
In a statement, TSA officials said that they are “in the process of terminating this individual for his disgraceful and intolerable behavior,” The Hill reports.
“TSA holds its security officers to the highest professional and ethical standards and has a zero-tolerance policy for misconduct in the workplace,” the agency said. “Allegations of misconduct are aggressively investigated and when our employees fail to meet these fundamental ethical standards, we hold our personnel appropriately accountable.”
This is the second time a TSA screener at JFK was caught on camera stealing passengers property, RT.com reports. On August 26, surveillance footage filmed a female agent reportedly stealing a $7,000 diamond watch from a screening bin, then walking away.
Brooklyn resident Margo Grant-Louree was fired from the agency, then charged with alleged grand larceny and official misconduct.
Evidence of one scandal that actually occurred in February wasn’t released by the TSA until earlier this month, because of an ongoing criminal investigation, RT.com reports. In the incident, video evidence showed one of its screeners groping “attractive” male passengers at an airport in Denver. Two screeners were fired following accusations that they allegedly rigged the security screening so that one of them could fondle male passengers. Authorities have said criminal charges will not be filed against the two former agents.
In another recent incident, also in New York, a TSA worker at LaGuardia Airport was fired for allegedly sexually assaulting a passenger inside an airport bathroom.