FORT MYERS, Fla. – A 43-year-old man recently admitted to stealing from airline passengers while he worked as a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer.
William J. Timothy admitted to pocketing about $18,700 in cash during 17 incidents from mid-2023 to early 2024 during border enforcement examinations and currency verifications at the Naples Airport.
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Timothy’s admission comes after CBP launched an internal investigation. A passenger who had flown from the Bahamas on a private plane on May 24, 2023, reported that after interacting with Timothy $2,200 vanished.
Prosecutors filed a criminal complaint charging Timothy in January with one count of officer or employee of the United States converting the property of another (More than $1,000).
According to the criminal complaint, a surveillance camera recorded Timothy taking and hiding the 22 $100 bills after the passenger handed him a stack of cash so he could count it. An investigator who reviewed the video reported Timothy placed “forms on top of the currency, in what is believed to be an effort to conceal the cash he took.”
Timothy, of Ave Maria, had been in trouble with the law before. In 2019, Collier County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested him after a 62-year-old man accused him of hurting him and keying his car. Records show surveillance video and a witness corroborated Timothy was “threatening” the man.
U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg announced on Tuesday that Timothy pleaded guilty and agreed to resign and pay restitution. He was awaiting sentencing with U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy R. Rice in Fort Myers. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison.