A convicted man from Texas has been sentenced to prison for conspiring to fraudulently obtain free Spirit Airlines flights for himself and others, as well as making fake employee identification badges in order to get the flights, prosecutors said.
The defendant, identified as Hubbard Bell, 32, from Houston, had previously worked for Mesa Airlines, which gives its employees free tickets for Spirit Airlines flights as a perk. However, Bell was terminated from his job at Mesa in 2015.
From February 2016 to November 2017, Bell reportedly worked with several other people to allegedly sell “stolen and unauthorized information of Mesa employees,” which would allow them to book free flights, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California.