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Man impersonated federal agent on 2007 flight from Logan

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 12, 2009 07:33 PM

By Globe Staff

The man in his late 40s flashed a badge, said he was a Department of Homeland Security agent, and filled out a flying-while-armed form at the airline ticket counter at Logan International Airport. Then he bypassed security and boarded a plane to San Diego.

On his return trip to Logan several days later, he again told airline personnel he was an agent flying armed and was invited by the pilots into the cockpit, where they told him who the air marshals were on the flight and who else was flying armed.

There was just one problem: The man was an imposter. Stephen Grant, 48, of Rockland was sentenced today to two years of probation on one count of impersonating a federal agent, federal prosecutors said.

Rather than being a pistol-packing law officer, Grant was actually director of sales for a medical supply company based in Rockland and was on a business trip, leaving Boston on Jan. 1, 2007 and returning on Jan. 4, 2007.

The badge he flashed, if someone had looked closely, was the badge he had gotten for being a part-time assistant harbormaster in the town of Chatham, prosecutors said.

The case was investigated by the Transportation Security Administration and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.