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Airport Arrest Nets 99 Doctored Driver's Licenses

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By VALERIE KALFRIN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 29, 2008

TAMPA - Airport police are investigating what a Chicago man and a homeless woman traveling with him planned to do with 99 driver's licenses stolen from people across the country and doctored with their pictures.

Kenneth Blake, 39, and Theresa Hensle, 39, were traveling under different names from Tampa to New Orleans on Southwest Airlines, but Transportation Security Administration employees did not recognize their identification were tampered with to show their pictures, airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said.

  Kenneth Blake and Theresa Hensle

"This is real identification of other people that they are using," Geoghagan said.

Christopher White, a TSA spokesman in Washington, was not concerned, however, that the employee had not noticed the fraudulent licenses. "While travel document checkers are an important layer of security, they are one layer of many," White said.

TSA considers document checks one part of a 20-layer system that includes baggage checks, bottled liquids scans and air marshals, he said.

About six months ago, TSA replaced contract workers with document checkers, who have black lights to look for the holograms imprinted on driver licenses and photographer's loupes to check ink quality, White said. The checkers' efforts have led to more than 100 arrests for fraudulent documents nationwide, he said.

In Tampa, airport police arrested Blake and Hensle at a Chili's Too restaurant at Airside C about 8:50 p.m. Sunday after a woman reported prescription medication and credit cards missing from her purse, Geoghagan said.

"They had a 30-minute window before they departed and I guess they couldn't help themselves," Geoghagan said.

As police officers searched the restaurant, other diners pointed out Blake and Hensle, who had left behind a large shopping bag and who had been sitting near the woman who was robbed, Geoghagan said.

The couple at first denied owning the bag, then acknowledged it was theirs, she said.

In the bag were doctored driver's licenses, driver's license blanks, partially completed counterfeit licenses, stolen credit cards, checks and gift cards, she said.

The couple had a real check for $10,000 payable to someone else and the identification in the other name to support cashing that check, she said.

Blake and Hensle were in Orient Road Jail on Monday. Blake's bail was set at $215,500 and Hensle's at $220,000. Each is charged with multiple counts of felony possession of counterfeit identification and felony dealing in stolen property, among other charges. A national criminal data search shows Blake was convicted in Illinois for felony theft in 2004, 2006 and 2007.

Geoghagan said police plan to add charges as they unravel the case. "Detectives have been calling victims all around the country to verify what's missing."

Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

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