Man, 96, reimbursed for $300 that went missing during airport pat-down

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BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich., May 8 (UPI) -- A suburban Detroit man said he finally got a check from the U.S. government reimbursing him for $300 that went missing during an airport pat-down.

Omer Petti of Bloomfield Township, with the help of his son, Bill Petti, wrote a letter more than a year ago and sent it to the president, Michigan senators and congressmen, officials at the Department of Homeland Security, Delta Airlines and the Transportation Security Administration, requesting the money lost during TSA pat-downs at the San Diego International Airport, the Detroit News reported Wednesday.

Petti and Madge Woodward, 86, his partner since 2006, were subjected to what they felt were invasive pat-downs when their artificial limbs and medications set off metal detectors. During the airport inspection, Petti was asked to place the $300 in cash in a bin along with his other belongings, the News reported.

"Are you sure you want me to put my bills in there?" Petti said he made a point of asking the TSA officials.

When the two seniors were released and told to get their belongings, the $300 was missing. Petti said authorities told him the video was too blurry to be able to tell what happened to the money.

"You can bet if my father [who is a WWII retired Air Force major] was a terrorist, those tapes would not be blurry!" Bill Petti charged.

Bill Petti pursued his father's claim through the federal government's bureaucracy because it was the right thing to do, the News reported.

"It was never so much about getting the money back. That was incidental. But I do feel good about the fact that what they did to us got a lot of attention. They needed to be held accountable," Omer Petti said.