TSA Worker charged in distributing child pornography

A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.

Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.

Homeland Security agents arrested the TSA officer March 24, and he is being held without bail.

Although the case was unsealed Thursday, neither the indictment nor the news release mentioned Gordon's job searching airline passengers for TSA.

The arrest comes as TSA grapples with several other incidents involving screeners, including a YouTube video posted last week by parents angry about the pat-down their 6-year-old daughter received at an airport in New Orleans. TSA officials said the pat-down was proper; the parents said the girl was "groped."

Citing privacy rules, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis would not say if Gordon has been suspended from his job, but noted that he had been in federal custody since his arrest.

"We can assure the public that he is no longer working at the airport," Davis said.

Gordon began working as a TSA screener at the Philadelphia airport in December 2005, Davis said. The airport has 900 screeners, she said.

If convicted of the child pornography charges, Gordon, 46, faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years. The maximum prison term is 250 years and the top fine is $3.2 million.

Gordon is paid $37,000 annually as a TSA screener, records show. He has no prior criminal record, officials said.

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