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She gave the TSA a taste of its own medicine.
A 61-year-old woman fed up with manhandling security screeners allegedly gave a female agent at the Phoenix airport a pat-down of her own, it was reported yesterday.
Yukari Mihamae, a writer and translator who lives outside Denver, was arrested for allegedly groping and squeezing the agent’s breast at Sky Harbor Airport Thursday, according to a report obtained by Fox 31 TV news in Denver.
“I go through this every week, and every week there is some problem,” she said at her home in Longmont, Colo.
Mihamae denied that she groped the agent.
The Japan native got into the altercation in Terminal 4 with the female agent, who was dressed in full uniform and wearing her badge, according to the TV report.
The report said Mihamae was accused of grabbing the agent’s “left breast through her clothing and squeezing and twisting it with both hands without the victim’s permission.”
She was immediately arrested on felony charges of sexual assault and held briefly in the Maricopa County Jail.
The Department of Homeland Security defended the arrest, saying “the agency will not tolerate assaults against its workforce.” A source denied that a TSA officer patted down Mihamae.
Additional reporting by Michael Billy