Pair arrested at LAX were on legitimate business

Last week I posted an item about a man and a woman who were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for posing as police. The two, who were accompanying a man in handcuffs, claimed to be escorting a prisoner to Hawaii.

The woman of the pair was armed with a handgun, which she declared to the TSA screeners in Terminal 3 at LAX. News reports said that when airport police ran a check, they determined that the pair were not police officers, nor did the woman have a permit to carry a gun. They were arrested.

Now it turns out that they were indeed on legitimate business for the State of Hawaii. An article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports that the two people arrested are employees of a company that the state of Hawaii hired to transport an inmate. According to the Star-Bulletin article, this new information came from Jean Ireton, Hawaii State Department of Public Safety deputy director for corrections.

Ireton said her division does not often hire private security for prisoner transport. She said the two people in question work for Court Services Inc. and were transporting an inmate from Arizona. Hawaii has inmates in several mainland prison facilities, including Florence Correctional Center in Arizona.

Ireton said the inmate is now in Hawaii.

The two who were arrested were identified as Rosemary Sanchez, 48, and Gary Garratt, 53.

An earlier article in the Honolulu Advertiser said that Garratt and Sanchez had been released on $35,000 bail each.