UW-Madison student got past Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago during Trump visit

MAEGAN VAZQUEZ, CNN by MAEGAN VAZQUEZ, CNN

A young man was screened by Secret Service agents and permitted to enter a restricted area of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club last fall, wandering to a common area for members, before being apprehended once agents realized he was neither a member nor a guest.

His unlawful entry came during Trump’s Thanksgiving holiday at his Florida property.

The man, Mark Slattery Lindblom, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to “knowingly” entering and staying in a restricted area on Mar-a-Lago on November 23, 2018, the day after Thanksgiving, according to court filings.

The filings say he entered entering Mar-a-Lago through a tunnel and remained at the resort until he was discovered by Secret Service agents. At the time, he was staying with family at a “neighboring beachfront property.”

A US Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement that Lindblom had entered the property “after undergoing security screening for weapons and other dangerous items” by Secret Service personnel. During his time on the property, the spokesperson said, Lindblom did not encounter the President or first lady Melania Trump “because of the layered security system in place at the club.”

“Upon unlawfully entering the property, the individual walked to a common area of the club open to members and his actions appeared inconsistent with that of a member or a guest. At that time, Secret Service personnel approached him and he was detained without further incident,” the statement said.

Lindblom was charged with unlawful entry last December, according to the filings, and he pleaded guilty on Tuesday in an agreement with prosecutors. He was sentenced by a federal judge in Florida to one year probation and a $25 fine.

The Palm Beach Post, which first reported Tuesday’s plea, wrote that Lindblom is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Court documents say Lindblom was born in 2000.

Lindblom’s Mar-a-Lago breach came months before Yujing Zhang was charged with making false statements to a federal officer and entering a restricted area at the Florida club. According to the criminal complaint against Zhang, she allegedly lied her way through security at Mar-a-Lago and breached a “protective zone.”

Zhang, a Chinese woman who tried to enter the property when the President was not at the club, provided two passports to agents when trying to verify her identity to enter the club. Agents also found four cell phones, a laptop, an “external hard drive type device” and a thumb drive in Zhang’s possession.

Zhang pleaded not guilty to the charges. She was denied bond in April. Her trial has been delayed as she seeks to represent herself.

After her arrest, court filings alleged that she was carrying a thumb drive with malware, but, according to prosecutors, it may have actually been a “false positive.”

CNN’s Tammy Kupperman and Eli Watkins contributed to this report.