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TSA ‘humiliated’ grandma with strip search before flight home: lawsuit

A Las Vegas woman has filed suit against the Transportation Security Administration alleging that airport screeners subjected her to a “humiliating” and “traumatizing” strip search on her trip home from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Rhonda Mengert, 51, says in a federal lawsuit filed in Oklahoma against the TSA for unspecified damages that she has a metal implant in her hip that she knows can set off false alarms when passing through metal detectors at airports.

Mengert claims that she told a male TSA agent at the airport in Tulsa about the implant and requested to be screened with a body scan.

But after the body scan, Mengert was told that she would need to go through a pat down, which was conducted by a female screener who checked her groin and found that she was wearing a pad.

After the pat down, Mengert was told that she would need to go with two female agents to a private room to be “cleared,” according to her lawsuit.

Once inside the screeners said that they would need to “clear the area” where they found the pad, the suit states.

“’I don’t understand what is happening — what is it you want me to do?'” Mengert recalls saying to the agents, she said in an interview The Post.

The agents instructed her to pull her pants and underwear down to her knees, expose her genitals and remove the product, the suit states. 

“I just spent the weekend with my kids and grandkids, they’re hugging me goodbye at the airport, and a half-hour later I was violated,” Mengert said.

The incident left Mengert traumatized and, since she has to travel often for work, will have to face TSA checkpoints in the future — and thus be reminded of the stress she endured in Tulsa.

“These people are responsible for violating my sense of self-worth,” Mengert said. “I wouldn’t wish the emotional distraught this has caused me on my worst enemy.”

Jonathan Corbett, a Hollywood-based attorney who represents Mengert in the case, said that the TSA keeps its screening procedures secret, but noted that in a 2011 blog post on its website, the TSA said that strip searches are not included in its protocols.

In her lawsuit, Mengert claims she was subjected to an unreasonable search and emotional distress, and has requested an injunction on TSA to require training for agents to prevent future unlawful strip searches.

The TSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the suit.