News Headlines

Police: Airport Security Worker Likely Bought ID

Reporter: Associated Press

UPDATE: Wednesday, May 15, 2012

Police believe a New Jersey airport security supervisor purchased a birth certificate and Social Security number 20 years ago from an intermediary who had bought them from a man who was later murdered.

Police in New York say they suspect that's how Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole assumed the name of Jerry Thomas and hid the fact he was in the country illegally.

Oyewole was arrested Monday. The 55-year-old Nigerian faces an identity theft charge and possible deportation.

NYPD police spokesman Paul Browne said Wednesday it's believed Thomas sold his identification papers to a Nigerian cabbie and then the driver later sold them to Oyewole. New Jersey officials say the airport worker began using the papers three weeks before Thomas' 1992 murder.

Until his arrest, Oyewole worked for a private security company at Newark's Liberty airport.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

More details are emerging in the case of a Newark Liberty Airport security supervisor who allegedly has been using the identity of a dead man for the last 20 years.

Law enforcement authorities involved in the investigation say Nigerian Bimbo Oyewole began using the identity of Queens, N.Y.,
resident Jerry Thomas three weeks before Thomas was shot and killed in 1992.

New Jersey's attorney general's office is working with the NYPD and other authorities to determine if Oyewole had any role in Thomas' death, which is unsolved.

As Thomas, Oyewole worked first as a security guard and then as a supervisor for a private security firm at Newark Liberty. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday to second-degree identity theft and is being held on $250,000 bail.