Indian American Man Caught Living Undetected in Chicago’s O’Hare Int’l Airport is Cleared of Trespass Charges

An Indian American man who lived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for three months has been cleared of a criminal trespass charge. A Cook County judge found Aditya Singh, 37, not guilty on Oct. 26. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Judge Adrienne Davis made the ruling in a directed verdict without the defense having to put on a case.” He “still faces a separate escape charge related to an alleged violation of electronic monitoring while he was free on bond earlier this year,” the Tribune added. That case is scheduled in court on Oct. 29.

Singh arrived at O’Hare from Los Angeles on Oct. 19 and lived in the airport’s security zone without detection since then. Police said Singh claimed he was too afraid to fly home to California because of COVID-19.

Singh was found on Jan. 16, when two United Airlines employees approached him and asked to see his identification. Reports at the time said Singh showed an airport ID badge that he was wearing around his neck. The badge had been reported missing on Oct. 26, 2020, by an O’Hare airport operations manager. The United Airlines employees called 911 and police took him into custody.

Singh has a master’s degree in hospitality and is currently unemployed. After he completed a master’s program at Oklahoma State University in summer 2019, he moved to Orange, California, southeast of Los Angeles, where he lived with roommates. He didn’t have a criminal background at the time of his arrest.

He got bail with the help of two Chicago nonprofits, the Tribune report said. “The Chicago Bail Project posted $1,000 bail and A Safe Haven, a nonprofit that helps homeless people, provided him a place to live.”

After his Jan. 16 arrest, the Transportation Security Administration launched an investigation. Authorities found no evidence that Singh left the secured public side of the airport, his assistant public defender, Courtney Smallwood told the Chicago Tribune. “Mr. Singh did not breach or improperly enter secured areas — he arrived there like tens of thousands of arriving passengers do every day, by stepping off a plane,” Christine Carrino, an aviation department spokeswoman, said in a statement to the Tribune earlier this year. “While we won’t speculate on Mr. Singh’s motivations, he decided to remain in the secure area and made every effort to blend in as a passenger and airline employee until his arrest.”

Singh’s roommate in Los Angeles told the Tribune in January that he had offered Singh a place to live in exchange for helping him care for his elderly father and other odd jobs. He said Singh’s visa was expiring, so he planned to return to India in October 2020, where his mother lives.

He said he met Singh through a mutual friend, Mary Steele, who described Singh as “a kind, nonviolent person.” She told the Tribune that in late November Singh told her that he was living in the airport “as part of a spiritual awakening of sorts.”

Steele shared with the Tribune a few texts the two exchanged while Singh was living at the airport. She revealed that he had told her “he planned to return to California with the goal of getting to India.” She said the two discussed bus fare prices, and Steele offered to help, the Tribune reported., and shared a Dec. 1, 2020 text Singh wrote to Steele. “I need to complete my karmic lessons that I’m learning here,” he wrote. “Then I’ll be able to go back home to India.”

She shared that Singh wrote about how he “enjoyed speaking to other people in the airport, sharing his Buddhist and Hindu beliefs on healing and trying to help improve their lives.” In a Jan. 3 response, Singh wrote, “I’m actually growing spiritually due to this experience and I know I will come out stronger.”