A man who lived at a Chicago airport for 3 months before being discovered said he was too scared to fly because of COVID-19, prosecutors say

• A 36-year-old California man lived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for three months before being discovered, according to multiple reports.
• Prosecutors said the man arrived at O’Hare from Los Angeles in October, but told police he was too scared to fly because of COVID-19.
• He was discovered Saturday when two United Airlines employees asked him for identification and he displayed a badge that had been reported missing in October.
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A 36-year-old California man lived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for three months before being discovered, according to multiple reports.

Prosecutors said the man told police he was too scared to fly because of COVID-19, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Aditya Singh arrived at O’Hare from Los Angeles on October 19, and lived in the airport’s security zone undetected until Saturday, when two United Airlines employees approached him and asked for identification, according to prosecutors, NBC Chicago reported.

Singh showed them a badge he had been wearing that actually belonged to an operations manager who reported it missing in October, prompting the employees to call 911.

Singh was charged this weekend with felony criminal trespass to a restricted area of an airport and misdemeanor theft.

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"You're telling me that an unauthorized, nonemployee individual was allegedly living within a secure part of the O'Hare airport terminal from Oct. 19, 2020, to Jan. 16, 2021, and was not detected?" Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz said to prosecutors in court Sunday, according to the Tribune. "I want to understand you correctly."

Assistant State's Attorney Kathleen Hagerty said Singh found the badge in the airport, and that he survived by receiving food from other passengers, the Tribune reported.

In a statement, the Chicago Department of Aviation, the agency that manages the city's airports, said, "CDA has no higher priority than the safety and security of our airports, which is maintained by a coordinated and multilayered law enforcement network," NBC reported.

"While this incident remains under investigation, we have been able to determine that this gentleman did not pose a security risk to the airport or to the traveling public," the statement said.