The San Francisco Chronicle has the play by play:
An allegedly drunken man who authorities say posed as a security screener at San Francisco International Airport long enough to direct a couple of women into a private booth for pat-downs is a private-equity executive with a big-time international resume.
Eric McLean Slighton, 53, who has addresses in both San Francisco and Hong Kong, was arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness following the bizarre episode at the A-side security checkpoint of the International Terminal about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to law enforcement sources.
The episode has raised disturbing questions about how an inebriated civilian could dress in an outfit that vaguely resembles the one worn by SFO's private security screeners and pass himself off as the real thing.
It's also raising questions about Slighton himself, a longtime executive with international equity firms who, according to his father, beat a drinking problem years ago.
Law enforcement sources tell us the incident started when Slighton entered the security area wearing khaki pants, a blue polo shirt and blue rubber gloves - an outfit that might have been mistaken for those worn by screeners with the Covenant security firm.
Slighton, apparently without saying much, steered a woman into one of the private screening booths used to pat down selected passengers, our sources say. What happened inside isn't known, because the woman, who was Asian, soon disappeared to catch an international flight.
A few minutes later, Slighton allegedly directed a second woman toward the booth, our sources say. This time, however, he caught the attention of real screeners, who figured something was wrong because male screeners are prohibited from taking women into the booth for a pat-down without a female screener also being present...
At the time he was detained, Slighton was carrying business cards from Aktis Capital Singapore, a private equity firm where he is listed as one of four partners.
Before joining Aktis, according to the company's website, he was managing director of Barclays Capital in Hong Kong and Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong..
Besides facing the public drunkenness charge, authorities say, Eric Slighton could be booked on other counts, such as false imprisonment. However, the case has largely gone hush-hush since the federal Transportation Security Administration, which oversees airport security, took over the investigation into how the breach happened.
A TSA spokesman in Washington would say only that officials "are aware of the alleged incident and cooperating with law enforcement" to get to the bottom of it.
I thought SFO was one of the small handful of airports that got an exemption from the TSA and used private security screeners?
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