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The lure of a bejeweled luxury watch accidentally left at an airport screening area seems to have been too much for a now-former Transportation Security Administration agent. She currently faces prison time for absconding with the timepiece, the New York Daily News reported.
TSA screener Margo Louree-Grant of Brooklyn was working in Terminal 7 of New York City's JFK Airport the afternoon of Aug. 26 when passenger Bindoo Ahluwalia placed a $7,000 white diamond-encrusted men's watch into a plastic bin as he went through security, according to the Daily News.
Ahluwalia promptly forgot his valuable item after passing through the checkpoint and walked away. Seizing the opportunity, Louree-Grant grabbed the watch and took it to a restroom, prosecutors told the Daily News, adding that this was all caught on video.
She apparently became nervous upon returning when she saw co-workers searching for the timepiece. Louree-Grant claims to have destroyed the watch after leaving her post a second time. She quit her job not long after, officials said.
Arrested Wednesday night, Louree-Grant was charged with grand larceny and official misconduct, facing up to seven years in prison if found guilty, officials commented to the Daily News.
"This kind of thievery will not be tolerated at our airports," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown declared Friday, according to the Daily News.
Louree-Grant's larceny is the latest in another series of alleged TSA agent misdeeds. Just a few days before the incident, a LaGuardia Airport agent was arrested for sexually assaulting a flier.
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