A 66-year-old woman with a history of trying to fly without a ticket once again managed to slip past security, this time boarding an international flight from Chicago.
Marilyn Jean Hartman, known as the serial stowaway, made it all the way to London without a ticket or passport.
She was charged Saturday with felony theft and misdemeanor criminal trespass to land and issued a $25,000 personal recognizance bond with mandatory electronic monitoring, according to KTLA sister station WGN in Chicago.
Last Sunday, in Terminal 3 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, prosecutors say she slipped by two Transportation Security Administration PreCheck officers. Her movements were caught on video.
Prosecutors say Hartman put her bag on the screening device, passed security and got in line for a flight to Connecticut. She tried to dart around another passenger to board the plane, but a flight agent stopped her and told her to sit down.
Instead, authorities say she made her way onto a shuttle bus to the International Terminal, even though fliers must show a plane ticket and a passport. They say Hartman spent the night in the terminal and walked right past two British Airways agents who were checking tickets.
“The defendant then hid in a small room in the side before quickly walking past a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent who was looking at passports of individuals,” said Assistant Cook County State`s Attorney Maria McCarthy. “The defendant then boarded a (British Airways) flight, sat in an empty seat and flew to Heathrow Airport.”
Hartman was stopped at Heathrow and sent back.
She has been arrested several times across the country, including multiple times in California. In 2014, a judge sentenced her to 177 days in jail for incidents connected to Los Angeles International Airport.
She’s also had four misdemeanor convictions related to O’Hare since 2015.
