‘I just walked into a trap’: Air marshal, Marine veteran lied about military deployment to get free first-class flights, feds say

Dior Jay-Jarrett/Facebook (DOJ criminal complaint).

A federal air marshal and veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps is accused of faking military deployments while still reaping the benefits of his job as an airline baggage handler — including free flights for himself, family members, and friends.

According to federal prosecutors, Dior Jay-Jarrett, 29, of Queens, New York, wove a web of lies that vastly overstated his military obligations in order to travel to far-flung locales on his employer’s dime. He served in the Marines from December 2013 until being medically retired in November 2022 — and his alleged wrongdoing began about a year before that retirement.

In October 2021, while still on active duty, Jay-Jarrett “began employment as a baggage handler for Airline-1,” the complaint says. His request for an eight-month military leave allegedly came about a week after training, with Jay-Jarrett “submitting falsified documents purporting to be Marine Corps orders he in fact had never been issued.” The defendant reportedly told his new employer that the Marine Corps had ordered him to report for duty in Kuwait beginning in November 2021. The paperwork he presented, however, “was signed with the name of a military official who had, according to Department of Defense records, retired in 1997” — and his actual duty, according to the complaint, was far from the Middle East.

“In fact, according to authentic military documents, Jay-Jarrett had been assigned to duty as a military guard in Garden City, New York, guarding the 1st Marine Corps District Headquarters between in or about July 2020 until his retirement in 2022,” the complaint said.

In or around June 2023, Jay-Jarrett again allegedly provided fake deployment documents, this time for a “another extended, approximately two-and-a-half-year long period of further military leave,” the complaint says. This time, Jay-Jarrett allegedly told his employer that he had been “deployed” to the “South West Border right now” and was unsure when he would be able to come back to work. The complaint noted that the fake deployment documents were “signed ‘J. W. Bordgurt,’ a purported Marine Corps official who, according to a search of the Department of Defense Person Search database, appears to not exist.”

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The following year, in July 2024, Jay-Jarrett did it again, prosecutors say, this time writing in an email that paperwork showed his “most recent, and current orders which should take me through the end of my military contract” and that he did not “intend to reenlist” — despite the fact that, at that point, he had already retired from the Marine Corps, the complaint notes.

The allegedly falsified paperwork Jay-Jarrett submitted to the airline, prosecutors say, entitled him to military leave and “travel privileges” aboard the airline “without actually performing work as a baggage handler.” And while on “military leave” from the airline, Jay-Jarrett reportedly became a federal air marshal with the Department of Homeland Security in or around October 2022, shortly before retiring from the Marine Corps.

Meanwhile, according to the complaint, Jay-Jarrett had yet another job — this time as a “Loss Prevention Lead at a sporting goods store,” identified in the complaint as “Retailer-1,” in or around March 2021. Feds say that he lied to that employer as well, taking “military leave” from June 2022 to June 2023.

“On or about July 3, 2022, Jay-Jarrett provided Retailer-1 falsified military orders claiming he would be stationed in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the following year,” the complaint says. “The orders were signed by “Dior JayJarrett” and purported to be authorized by a Marine Corps official identified as ‘J.W. Bordgurt.”” The complaint alleges that Jay-Jarrett “may have maintained an extended military leave at Retailer-1 in order to benefit from the store’s employee discount.”

Prosecutors allege that, given Jay-Jarrett’s combined salary from his jobs in the military, DHS, and the sporting goods store — totaling nearly $130,000 by 2023 — he likely “never intended to actually begin work as a baggage handler at Airline-1.”

He was, however, allegedly willing to reap the benefits.

“[B]y remaining on long-term military leave at Airline-1, Jay-Jarrett remained entitled to travel benefits including the ability to take unlimited, free flights on Airline-1 alongside ticketed family members or travel companions (who generally paid for a portion of their tickets, but at reduced rates),” the complaint says. “From in or about November 2021 through September 2024, Jay-Jarrett took at least 130 such flights — and his family and friends approximately 20 more — at a value of nearly $70,000.”

Specifically, prosecutors say that between December 2021 and September 2024, Jay-Jarrett traveled on the airline’s dime some two dozen times:

Over the course of the scheme, from at least in or about December 2021 through in or about September 2024 [ …] Jay-Jarrett took free first-class flights to Los Angeles, London, San Diego, St. George’s, Las Vegas, and Dublin, and dozens more standard class flights to destinations including Antigua (five times), Aruba (three times), Bermuda (three times), Curaçao (twice), Barbados (twice), Belize (twice), the Grand Caymans (twice), Grenada (twice), Guatemala (twice), and a variety of other destinations including Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Peru, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, the Dominican Republic, and St. Maarten.

One of those alleged trips was to Mexico — which Jay-Jarrett reportedly documented on social media.

“Jay-Jarrett took a five-day trip to Cabo San Lucas at Airline-1’s expense in or about August 2022, which he described on his Facebook page as being in one of 13 countries he had visited that year,” the complaint says.

“Out of the 13 countries I’ve visited so far this year, this has genuinely been one of my FAVORITE solo trips,” he purportedly wrote in that Facebook post, followed by an apparent joke: “No Sea Lions were harmed in the making of these videos.”

Prosecutors say that when Jay-Jarrett’s girlfriend raised questions about how he was able to manage all the travel perks, he avoided giving an honest answer.

“In text messages sent to a girlfriend on or about April 3, 2023, Jay-Jarrett explained that he ‘got a discount’ he could give her to take Airline-1 flights, but she responded that she was hesitant to take up his offer, asking ‘should you be using that for yourself?’ and explaining, “just understand I’m not used to this[,]” the complaint said. “Jay-Jarrett expressed reluctance to answer the question, explaining with frustration that he had ‘resent my same message pertaining to my discount twice.’ When Jay-Jarrett’s girlfriend asked, ‘How do you get that benefit?’ he declined to explain further, saying only ‘I explained it to you already.’”

In August 2024, when Jay-Jarrett and his girlfriend traveled to JFK Airport for a flight on his then-employer’s airline, he seemed to think he was close to being busted. After using special security credentials to bypass the security line and seeking permission to fly with his TSA service weapon, a gate agent, “confused that an employee flying stand-by on personal travel would also be carrying a weapon as a Federal Air Marshal,” called the corporate office, the complaint says. The defendant reportedly explained to security that he was a federal air marshal in addition to working at the airline, and showed his TSA credentials.

But he apparently was doubting his alleged scheme.

“I think I just walked into a trap,” he allegedly texted his girlfriend, explaining that he had been asked to provide paperwork. “I just have a funny feeling,” he later added, and wrote that he hoped “nothing comes from these.”

Jay-Jarrett is charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a potential 20-year maximum prison sentence.

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‘I just walked into a trap’: Air marshal, Marine veteran lied about military deployment to get free first-class flights, feds say

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