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Security firm booted in wake of Newark Airport ID blunder

By NEWSCORE
NEWARK -New York authorities are firing the big-dollar contractor that employed a Newark Airport security supervisor who worked illegally under a phony identity for two decades.

FJC Security will get its walking papers Tuesday from enraged Port Authority executives. The decision will cost the company two multi-year contracts worth a total $550 million — $93 million this year alone.

PA officials said they were troubled by a long list of security foul-ups by FJC, capped by last week’s arrest of Peter “Bimbo” Oyewole, who used the identity of a homicide victim to land his sensitive job and passed repeated background checks.

PA Executive Director Pat Foye said, “Recent serious lapses are unacceptable. The entire security function at the PA is under review, including our current private security vendor.”

FJC has done work for the Port Authority since 2003 and employs roughly 1,000 people, which includes the region’s airports, the Hudson River crossings, the World Trade Center and the PATH train line. The firm is going to be kept in place until the PA can hire a replacement, officials said.

The company on Monday vowed to reapply for the lucrative PA work, even as it acknowledged its failures.

“We have a tremendous track record, including many successes that the public never hears about for important security reasons,” FJC spokesman Michael McKeon said. “The incidents cited by the [PA] are indeed unacceptable, which is why FJC has always taken proactive steps to improve operations whenever an issue has arisen.”

Oyewole, 55, was arrested May 14 after the PA’s inspector general received a tip the security boss was posing as Jerry Thomas since 1992, when Thomas — a 41-year-old career criminal — was killed in a YMCA shooting in Queens.

Source: myfoxny.com

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