Man claiming he feared COVID lived inside Chicago airport for 3 months without detection: prosecutors
He was trying to hide from COVID... inside one of the world’s busiest airports?
A California man who said he was afraid of contracting coronavirus while flying decided to live at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, where he remained undetected for three months before being arrested over the weekend, authorities said.
In a stunning case that resembles the plot of Tom Hanks’ 2004 movie “The Terminal,” 36-year-old Aditya Singh managed to hide in a secured area of the airport and survive by getting food from passengers, prosecutors told an incredulous judge on Sunday, The Chicago Tribune reported.
“So if I understand you correctly,” Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz said, “you’re telling me that an unauthorized, nonemployee individual was allegedly living within a secure part of the O’Hare airport terminal from Oct. 19, 2020, to Jan. 16, 2021, and was not detected? I want to understand you correctly.”
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Assistant State’s Attorney Kathleen Hagerty reportedly confirmed the allegations, noting that Singh was wearing an airport ID badge that belonged to an operations manager. The badge was reported missing on Oct. 26, about a week after the suspect took up residence at the airport, according to the Tribune.
Singh claims he found the badge and began wearing it because he was “scared to go home due to COVID,” Hagerty told the court.
He was busted on Saturday afternoon after two United Airlines employees approached him and asked for his identification. Police charged him with felony criminal trespass to a restricted area of an airport and misdemeanor theft.
Ortiz set his bail at $1,000 and banned him from O’Hare pending a Jan. 27 court appearance.
Singh lives with roommates in the Los Angeles suburb of Orange and does not have a criminal record, prosecutors said. He also has a master’s degree in hospitality but is unemployed, they told the court.
