Stolen ID Got Mom Past Airport Security

PHILADELPHIA - One of the lingering questions in the aftermath of a mother's alleged abduction hoax is how she slipped past airport security with someone else's ID.

The answer from security officials at Philadelphia International Airport is that it was easy because she didn't have to do much to pull it off, Fox 29's Steve Keeley reported.

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Bonnie Sweeten is accused of falsifying a 911 carjacking and abduction story Tuesday while taking her 9-year-old daughter to Disney World. That's where the 38-year-old from Feasterville was arrested Wedneday night.

She allegedly flew out of the airport Tuesday using that former co-workers ID driver's license as identification to obtain both her airline ticket and boarding pass from an airline and to get through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints.

Prosecutors said Sweeten obtained the ID from former colleague Jillian Jenkinson with a story about needing to fix a discrepancy on her 401(k).

Jenkinson, who worked with Sweeten for nine years, said on CBS' "The Early Show" that the request "seemed innocent," and she described Sweeten as a good mother who was always on top of things.

"I think whatever's going on in her life is a way bigger issue than my ID," Jenkinson said. "I hope that she's OK."

Keeley reported that there is quite a resemblance between Sweeten and the former co-worker, Jillian Jenkinson, of Trevose.

On Thursday, a TSA spokesperson told Fox 29 News that checkpoint workers are trained to look for fake IDs. But since so many people don't resemble their own driver's license pictures, it's easy to use someone else's license if you look like them and get through, especially when your age, hair and eye colors are all alike.

Among the arrivals at PHL later on Thursday could be Julia Rakoczy and her father, who flew down to Orlando to pick her up.

Odds are that local detectives who flew down to question Sweeten will also want to talk to her daughter to learn what her mother said as they worked their way through the airport.

Sweeten, herself, will also be flown back to the area eventually to face charges in Bucks County of identity theft and false reports to law enforcement.

The hoax forced very busy local and federal law enforcement agencies to spend time, money and resources on a phony Amber Alert case that resulted in a top-priority, all-points search, Keeley reported.

It didn't appear in the morning as if Sweeten's extradition hearing would occur Thursday.