Nadine Pellegrino wrote to following about her encounter with the TSA at the Philadelphia airport.
In 2006 Nadine Pellegrino was traveling home to Florida with her husband via the Philadelphia International Airport. During a provocative and abusive property damaging search, she told two TSA screeners she intended to report their conduct to TSA authorities. During the search Nuryiah Abdul Malik twice insisted to her supervisor who Malik wanted to witness the search to call the police to arrest Pellegrino for speaking about their abuse and damage to her property. After the search ended the two TSA officers falsely accused her of assaulting them with her suitcase as she was leaving the search closet. Neither were touched by Pellegrino or her suitcases. Either one or both of the TSA officers threw articles of Pellegrino personal property into the trashcan while Pellegrino was out of the closet.
After the search TSA TSO Nuryiah Abdul Malik insisted to STSO Laura Labbee that Pellegrino be arrested. Labbee re-detained her and marginalized Pellegrino at a table on the checkpoint and confiscated her drivers license, asked her husband invasive questions about her private health information without Pellegrino's knowledge or permission. Both Pellegrino and her husband repeatedly requested to speak to the TSA Official in Charge at the airport while re-detained. Labbee ignored their requests. Labbee and Malik told TSA Officials and the Phila. Police who were called to the checkpoint that Pellegrino assaulted them and they wanted her arrested. Abdul Malik adamantly insisted on "pressing charges" against Pellegrino. Once Labbee knew Abdul Malik was following through on "pressing charges" Labbee also said she would file a complaint. Both falsely incriminated Pellegrino. Pellegrino was arrested for fictitious crimes and became a TSA crime victim. The Phila Police obliged frisked and tightly handcuff Pellegrino not telling her the reason she was being arrested as her husband watched in disbelief, shock, and horror. Her husband was not told why she was arrested. Pellegrino was locked up in horrific, filthy conditions in Phila jail cells until the next afternoon --no food 1/2 pint of foul smelling water. Over the course of approximately 20 months, the ten criminal counts disappeared from the charge sheet, were discharged for lack of evidence, and were acquitted at trial.
According to the pronouncement of Preliminary Hearing Judge Deleon, Pellegrino, the Crime victim of the TSA, was to stand trial for treating the TSA Officers as handmaidens. During a court ordered hearing, TSA Asst. Field Counsel Lisa Eckl, Esq. fessed up to another Phila. Municipal Court judge that TSA Aviation Inspectors made a deliberate decision to have the digitally recorded video evidence destroyed while Pellegrino, her husband and her defense attorneys were requesting copies of the surveillance evidence for a proper defense. Matters changed at another hearing, testimony was suppressed for trial after TSA Field Counsel, Patrice Scully, tried to put the blame for the destruction of the best factual evidence on the Phila. Airport. The judge didn't buy it. At trial the last of the charges were acquitted after the TSA and the Phila Asst. District Attorney Andre Martino presented a feeble, incoherent, and unsubstantiated prosecution with Labbee and her false witness, Denice Kissinger directly contradicting each other's testimony. No substantial evidence was presented, only contradictory testimony. Pellegrino was not required to defend herself at trial. The cases ended after the Prosecutor embarrassed himself. The judged named the TSA responsible for violation of Pellegrino's civil rights to a fair trial and delivered quick verdicts of Not Guilty. Not Guilty.
The TSA had admitted on court records that the TSA Aviation Security Inspectors made a thoughtful deliberate decision to have what the judge referred to as The Best Factual Evidence destroyed thus violating Pellegrino rights to a fair trial. The TSA denies any liability in the 20 month costly nightmare they created for Pellegrino and her husband. Instead they have demonized and maligned Pellegrino. Pellegrino and her husband have filed a federal civil rights violations lawsuit against the USA, the TSA, Abdul Malik, Labbee, Kissinger, the TSA Aviation Security Inspectors and TSA Officials who covered up the deliberate destruction of best factual evidence and also intended to withhold discoverable exculpatory evidence from her attorneys during due process proceedings. Their website www.pellegrinovstsa.com provides more details and will keep people posted regarding the proceedings as a public service. The transcript of the TSA admission of deliberate destruction is posted on the website as well as other documents.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Quality Quinn, Fayette Veverka, Lynne Lechter - Philadelphia International Airport
On June 21, 2010 Daniel Rubin, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote the following article about the experiences of Quality Quinn, Fayette Veverka, and Lynne Lechter. These woman had similar humiliating experiences when flying out of Philadelphia International Airport.
Is it a Philly thing?
Are complaints about strange security screenings at the airport something you'll find across the country, or is there a particular problem here?
I can't give you statistical certainty on this. But when you listen to frequent fliers like Quality Quinn, you have to wonder.
"There is something wrong with the culture at this airport," Quinn, a 55-year-old educational consultant, told me last week.
For 20 years she has flown around the country, giving talks on literacy, and in January she moved from Austin, Texas, to Philadelphia.
"Never in my life have I experienced what I go through almost every other week at the Philadelphia airport," she said. "I have had the most excruciating, embarrassing [screenings] there."
She called me after my column last Monday about retired professor Nancy Anne Phillips, who complained that before an April flight an airport screener's wand made contact with her crotch.
The TSA has reviewed a tape of that encounter and concluded its security officer did nothing inappropriate. The agency has since erased the tape.
Quinn said she, too, had endured a recent wanding that went too far.
So did Fayette Veverka, a Villanova University theology professor.
And Lynne Lechter, a King of Prussia lawyer who has run for the state House.
"I cannot stress enough that this behavior has not been encountered in any of the other cities from which I have gone through security," Lechter wrote last week to US Airways CEO Doug Parker.
Lechter was complaining about an April 19 flight to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. She isn't sure why, after she went through the metal detector, she was selected for a secondary screening.
But she said in an interview that the woman holding the wand had run it up and down the inside of her legs - Lechter was wearing a skirt - and that Lechter had found it "sexually suggestive."
Worse, she said, "a leering man watched the entire search." When she complained to a supervisor at a desk, he investigated, but the man was gone, Lechter said.
Like Phillips, she declined a private screening. "The last thing I wanted to do was go in a private room," Lechter said. "I'd rather have the public humiliation."
Veverka said she was heading for an early-morning flight to Cleveland on June 11 when her metal replacement knees set off the alarms.
"I had on a loose skirt," the professor said, and when the female screener wanded her, "I just jumped. I was like, 'Excuse me?' . . . I just found it very invasive."
She said the screener had put her hands under and between her breasts, presumably because Veverka's bra contained metal.
"The press was too hard for what they're looking for," she said. "I felt groped."
Quinn's most recent adventure at the airport was on May 28 as she was heading to Charleston, S.C. She's had two hip replacements, and her back and knee are girded with metal. After the detector sounded, she walked to a glass enclosure for a secondary inspection.
She had to stop the screener who wanded her.
"I just said, 'Too invasive.' The person examining me slapped her hands at her side. A supervisor dismissed her and sent someone else over."
TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said she couldn't address the specifics of the women's complaints, but recommended that anyone uncomfortable with a screening should approach the agency's customer-service representative.
"We want to treat every passenger with dignity and respect," she said, "and if they feel that isn't happening, we want to hear about it so we can give the screeners remedial training in standard operating procedures."
When I told Quinn that I'd heard from two other women who complained about screenings after my column about Phillips ran, she offered a theory about why these incidents involved professional women.
It wasn't what I expected. I had written in the spring about Deirdre Walker, a former Maryland police official who has concluded from personal experience that the TSA likes to select those who look least likely to put up a fuss.
Quinn ventured that she and other multitasking businesswomen had a super-focused look that screeners could take for haughtiness.
"We always just look like our hair is on fire," she said. "I'm sure we have that look that says, 'Make it snappy.' "
Is it a Philly thing?
Are complaints about strange security screenings at the airport something you'll find across the country, or is there a particular problem here?
I can't give you statistical certainty on this. But when you listen to frequent fliers like Quality Quinn, you have to wonder.
"There is something wrong with the culture at this airport," Quinn, a 55-year-old educational consultant, told me last week.
For 20 years she has flown around the country, giving talks on literacy, and in January she moved from Austin, Texas, to Philadelphia.
"Never in my life have I experienced what I go through almost every other week at the Philadelphia airport," she said. "I have had the most excruciating, embarrassing [screenings] there."
She called me after my column last Monday about retired professor Nancy Anne Phillips, who complained that before an April flight an airport screener's wand made contact with her crotch.
The TSA has reviewed a tape of that encounter and concluded its security officer did nothing inappropriate. The agency has since erased the tape.
Quinn said she, too, had endured a recent wanding that went too far.
So did Fayette Veverka, a Villanova University theology professor.
And Lynne Lechter, a King of Prussia lawyer who has run for the state House.
"I cannot stress enough that this behavior has not been encountered in any of the other cities from which I have gone through security," Lechter wrote last week to US Airways CEO Doug Parker.
Lechter was complaining about an April 19 flight to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. She isn't sure why, after she went through the metal detector, she was selected for a secondary screening.
But she said in an interview that the woman holding the wand had run it up and down the inside of her legs - Lechter was wearing a skirt - and that Lechter had found it "sexually suggestive."
Worse, she said, "a leering man watched the entire search." When she complained to a supervisor at a desk, he investigated, but the man was gone, Lechter said.
Like Phillips, she declined a private screening. "The last thing I wanted to do was go in a private room," Lechter said. "I'd rather have the public humiliation."
Veverka said she was heading for an early-morning flight to Cleveland on June 11 when her metal replacement knees set off the alarms.
"I had on a loose skirt," the professor said, and when the female screener wanded her, "I just jumped. I was like, 'Excuse me?' . . . I just found it very invasive."
She said the screener had put her hands under and between her breasts, presumably because Veverka's bra contained metal.
"The press was too hard for what they're looking for," she said. "I felt groped."
Quinn's most recent adventure at the airport was on May 28 as she was heading to Charleston, S.C. She's had two hip replacements, and her back and knee are girded with metal. After the detector sounded, she walked to a glass enclosure for a secondary inspection.
She had to stop the screener who wanded her.
"I just said, 'Too invasive.' The person examining me slapped her hands at her side. A supervisor dismissed her and sent someone else over."
TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said she couldn't address the specifics of the women's complaints, but recommended that anyone uncomfortable with a screening should approach the agency's customer-service representative.
"We want to treat every passenger with dignity and respect," she said, "and if they feel that isn't happening, we want to hear about it so we can give the screeners remedial training in standard operating procedures."
When I told Quinn that I'd heard from two other women who complained about screenings after my column about Phillips ran, she offered a theory about why these incidents involved professional women.
It wasn't what I expected. I had written in the spring about Deirdre Walker, a former Maryland police official who has concluded from personal experience that the TSA likes to select those who look least likely to put up a fuss.
Quinn ventured that she and other multitasking businesswomen had a super-focused look that screeners could take for haughtiness.
"We always just look like our hair is on fire," she said. "I'm sure we have that look that says, 'Make it snappy.' "
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