When it comes to air travel, it seems that every few months a passenger is assaulted by a fellow traveler. This time a woman on a Virgin America flight said her seat mate inappropriately touched her, and then offered to buy drinks to smooth things over.
The woman was sitting in the middle seat on an overnight flight from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ on July 29, when she says she woke up to find the stranger in the next seat groping her.
According a criminal complaint [PDF] filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark, after falling asleep during the flight, the woman woke “to find [the man’s] hand massaging her vagina and buttocks over her pants” and “rubbing his bare feet against [her] bare feet.”
When the woman noticed the 58-year-old man touching her, she alerted her male friend sitting in the window seat. At that point, the friend switched seats with the victim and confronted the stranger.
The man allegedly told the friend that he wanted everyone to “forget about the incident and offered to buy the friend a drink for any trouble he may have caused,” according to the complaint.
The offer was declined and the victim’s friend alerted the flight’s crew about the incident. At that point, the man was moved to an empty seat across the aisle.
The Washington Post reports that upon landing, the man was arrested by the FBI and taken into federal custody. He was charged Monday with abusive sexual contact and released on $50,000 bail.
Again, we’re really getting sick of having to report on these situations, but here are just a few of the ones we’ve had to cover already:
• Man Accused Of Groping Unaccompanied Minor On American Airlines Flight
• Yet Another Airline Passenger Arrested For Groping Sleeping Woman
• Off-Duty Delta Pilot Accused Of Groping 14-Year-Old Asleep Next To Him On Flight
• United Passenger Guilty Of Sexually Assaulting Sleeping Female Traveler
• Man Prompts JetBlue Flight To Make Emergency Landing Because Groping Pregnant Women Isn’t Okay
• JetBlue Passenger Charged With Putting Hand Under Sleeping Woman’s Skirt
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist