66-year-old woman is smarter than TSA.
Via Chicago Tribune:
A woman notorious for stowing away on commercial airplanes made it past two Transportation Security Administration agents at O’Hare International Airport by hiding her face with her hair, then stayed overnight at the airport before sneaking onto a plane and flying to London this week, prosecutors said Saturday.
Marilyn Hartman, 66, faces a felony theft charge in connection with flying to the United Kingdom on a British Airways jet without a $2,400 plane ticket and a misdemeanor trespass charge in connection with getting into the airport illegally. In a hearing Saturday afternoon, a judge ordered her released on her own recognizance, but ordered her to undergo psychiatric treatment and stay away from O’Hare and any British Airways planes.
Hartman also will be required to have an ankle monitor until the conclusion of her case.
“There is no pun intended for your client, but she is a flight risk given the number of offenses,” Judge Stephanie K. Miller said to Hartman’s court-appointed attorney.
Dressed in a dark gray sweater and wearing black-framed eyeglasses, Hartman said nothing during the hearing, but her lips curled into a smile after the judge granted her release.
Hartman used her hair to hide her face and walk past two federal TSA Precheck agents who were checking boarding passes around 2 p.m. on Jan. 14 at O’Hare, prosecutors said Saturday.
After entering a security checkpoint, she then went to a terminal and tried to board a plane to Connecticut, but as she tried to “dart around” another passenger in line, she was stopped by a flight agent and told to sit down, Assistant State’s Attorney Maria McCarthy told the court.
Hartman got onto a shuttle bus to the International Terminal and slept there overnight, prosecutors said.
The next day, Hartman managed to get past British Airways ticket agents and a Customs and Border Patrol officer, and onto a plane, prosecutors said. She sat in an empty seat and flew to London’s Heathrow Airport, but when she showed her documents to a Customs agent, she was identified as someone who entered England without proper documentation, McCarthy said.