Former TSA officer faces sentencing for bribery

BRIDGEPORT (AP) -- A former Transportation Security Administration officer is facing sentencing for accepting cash in exchange for allowing what he was told was illegal prescription painkillers to pass through airport security without detection.

Christopher Allen of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. is scheduled to be sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport. He pleaded guilty in April to extortion and receipt of a bribe.

Prosecutors said Allen, while employed as a TSA officer at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla., on four occasions last year was paid $500 by an oxycodone trafficker, who by this time was cooperating with law enforcement.

Allen's attorney says the purported oxycodone pills were actually baby aspirin or other placebos. He said Allen's conduct was a "marked deviation' from an otherwise law-abiding life.