Fear of getting infected by the contagion- Covid-19, let a 36 year old, Indian origin man to live at Chicago International Airport for three months. Aditya Singh, a resident of Los Angeles, California was arrested on Saturday.
Singh had been living at the airport since October last year, as per a report published by Chicago Tribune.
Singh now charged with felony criminal trespass to a restricted area of an airport and misdemeanour theft as per the report.
Singh arrived at O'Hare on a flight from Los Angeles on October 19 and lived there undetected for three months, reported by the prosecutors.
After two airline staff asked him to produce identification, he showed them a badge that belonged to operations manager and it was reported as missing.
The police took him in custody on Saturday morning. Assistant State Attorney Kathleen Hagerty said, he was "scared to go home due to COVID."
While hearing his case, the Judge Susana Ortiz said, "So if I understand you correctly, you're telling me that an unauthorised, non-employee 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."
His case will be heard again on January 27 and he has been barred from entering the Airport.
"Being in a secured part of the airport under a fake ID badge allegedly, based upon the need for airports to be absolutely secure so that people feel safe to travel, I do find those alleged actions do make him a danger to the community," the judge added.
The Chicago Department of Aviation observed in a statement that he didn't pose security risk to the airport or to the travelers.