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Former TSA officer charged with child pornography www.privateofficer.com
Andrew W. Cheever, 33, of Beverly, who screened passengers at Logan International Airport, was arrested at his Beverly home yesterday and brought into federal court in Boston, where Chief Magistrate Judge Judith Gail Dein ordered him held pending a hearing Thursday.
Transportation Security Administration hired Cheever in May 2007, but when he stopped working for the agency was not immediately clear yesterday. He
was identified as a former TSA employee in December, when local authorities charged him with child pornography possession in Lowell District Court. But he had TSA uniforms when police searched his former home in Lowell that month, and a federal criminal complaint said he was employed as a transportation security officer at the time.
His attorney, John Andrews, told the Herald the local case was dismissed because the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office “was not prepared to move forward and was aware that the U.S. attorney’s office was actively investigating the case.”
Andrews declined to comment on the federal charges.
“Anything to be said about the merits of the case will be said in U.S. District Court. We’ve not
completed our own investigation on behalf of the defense, nor have we had the opportunity to review all of the pleadings on the part of the U.S. attorney’s office,” he said. The charges originated from an October 2010 state police sting on an online file-sharing network.
Source:Boston Herald
