TSA Agent Jailed for Making Woman Show Breasts

TSA agent Johnathon Lomeli sentenced to 60 days in jail for LAX stunt in June 2019
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 25, 2021 6:06 AM CST
Updated Jan 25, 2021 6:49 AM CST
TSA Agent Learns 'the Hard Way' Not to Trick Travelers
A Transportation Security Administration checkpoint sign is displayed at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on Jan. 5, 2019.   (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A former Transportation Security Administration agent who was accused of tricking a traveler into showing her breasts as she went through security at Los Angeles International Airport pleaded no contest Friday to false imprisonment, authorities said. Johnathon Lomeli entered the plea to a felony count and was sentenced to 60 days in county jail, 52 classes on sexual compulsion, and two years of probation, California's attorney general's office announced, per the AP. Lomeli, 23, was also barred from working as a security guard. Lomeli had been charged with using fraud or deceit to falsely imprison the woman in June 2019. The woman told investigators that Lomeli told her he had to look inside her bra to ensure she wasn't hiding anything, had her hold her pants away from her waist for a check, and then said he would take her to a private room for further security screening, prosecutors said.

But when they were alone on an elevator, Lomeli told the woman he could perform the screening there and ordered her to lift her shirt and show her breasts, then looked down her pants, she said. Lomeli then told the woman she was free to go and added that she had nice breasts, authorities said. "We all have the right to be treated with dignity and respect in all places," Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement, per the Los Angeles Daily News. "And no one is entitled to use a position of power to violate those rights. Why can't some men absorb that simple truth? This is 2021, not 1921. Today, Johnathon Lomeli learned this the hard way."

(More Transportation Security Administration stories.)

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