Former LAX Security Chief Held in Fraud Probe

Frank Costigan, former chief of Los Angeles International Airport Security Bureau, was arrested and booked on suspicion of embezzlement Tuesday following a 16-month investigation into charges of corruption in the independent police force.

The Los Angeles Police Department, whose Internal Affairs Division conducted the investigation of the Security Bureau at the request of the Department of Airports, said the counts against Costigan accuse him of utilizing bureau funds to rent a vehicle for personal use and of submitting falsified travel vouchers.

The former chief, who has been working recently as a private security consultant, was arrested at his office in Inglewood. He later posted $1,500 bail at the Pacific Division police station and was ordered to appear in Los Angeles Municipal Court on March 4.

Costigan, 44, who had been appointed bureau chief on a probationary basis in November, 1983, resigned the post in October, 1984--the same time that the investigation began, and only a month before he had been scheduled to receive the appointment on a permanent basis.

Costigan said at the time that he had been ordered by Department of Airports officials not to discuss the investigation.

However, in an interview several months earlier, he said he had been appointed chief to “clean out the favoritism” in the bureau and end complaints about poor police work at the airport.

“In doing so,” he said, “I had to step on some toes or deflate some egos.”

Last summer, the Los Angeles Police Department said that its investigation had revealed evidence of grand theft, embezzlement, conspiracy to commit bribery “and other felony criminal conduct” by officers in the Security Bureau.

While investigators declined to discuss this evidence, search warrants showed they had been looking into payroll records, overtime payment reports and work schedules, according to one officer from the bureau who witnessed the search.

In the months that preceded Costigan’s arrest, one officer was charged with embezzlement, another was arrested on suspicion of auto theft and several security bureau personnel were fired.

Clifton Moore, the airport’s general manager, said he requested the investigation after receiving anonymous letters that made “rather severe allegations” against the security bureau.

The bureau’s 206 sworn officers make it one of Southern California’s largest police agencies, comparable in size to the police departments of Bakersfield, Pasadena and Torrance.