A baggage handler who got a job at a major US airline in the New York area used fake military service documents to get extended periods of time off work while still using his free flight benefits, taking 130 free or heavily discounted flights to luxury destinations like Aruba, Grand Cayman, Turks and Caicos, and St. Maarten.
Dior Jay-Jarret was arrested and charged on Thursday morning with defrauding the unnamed airline out of more than $70,000 in plane tickets over a three-year period after the airline found photos he posted of him vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, when he was meant.
During this time, Dior even managed to get a job as a Federal Air Marshal while still employed as a baggage handler, balancing the two jobs by taking fraudulent military leave, Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky has alleged.
The deception allegedly started in October 2021 when, still on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, Dior began to work as a baggage handler for the airline. Just a week into his training, Dior allegedly used a forged document claiming to be a deployment to get an eight-month military leave authorized.
The deception was repeated in June 2023 when Dior yet again falsified military deployment orders to get two and half years of military leave despite the fact that he had left the Marine Corps in November 2022.
By this point, however, Dior had also managed to get a job as a Federal Air Marshal, allegedly lying to recruiters about his job as baggage handler and managing to work for the Department of Homeland Security only because he was on an extended period of military leave.
Prosecutors claim that during his time on military leave, Dior managed to take 130 flights which would have cost $70,000 to buy as a regular passenger, flying to a slew of destinations in First Class for free, including Los Angeles, London, San Diego, Dublin, Las Vegas and Trinidad and Tobago.
Some destinations Dior visited more than once, flying to Antigua five times, Aruba and Bermuda three times each, and Curaçao, Barbados, and Belize all three times.
“As alleged, Jay-Jarrett—a federal law enforcement officer who currently serves as a Federal Air Marshal for the Department of Homeland Security—racked up thousands of dollars in free or discounted flights while pretending to be deployed on military missions around the world,” Podolsky said following Dior’s arraignment.
“He did so while simultaneously swearing an oath to protect and serve the public. Federal law enforcement officers are responsible for upholding our laws, and they will be held responsible when they break them.”
Once the airline became suspicious of what Dior was up to, law enforcement was called in, and he ended up being interviewed in September 2024. During this interview, Dior is alleged to have admitted to falsifying military orders to get leave even though he was already retired from the Marine Corps.
If found guilty, Dior faces a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in a federal prison.
