Passenger gropes off-duty flight attendant asleep next to him on United flight, feds say
An off-duty flight attendant asleep on a United Airlines flight to Los Angeles awoke to the stranger next to her groping her leg, federal prosecutors said.
Mohammad Jawad Ansari, 50, was in the window seat when he touched the woman’s knee and inner thigh after she fell asleep following the flight’s takeoff from Cleveland, Ohio, on Feb. 17, 2020, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
The woman, who has been a flight attendant for 33 years, was traveling to Los Angeles International Airport to work an American Airlines flight to Japan as the assault unfolded, court documents say.
When she woke up to Ansari’s hand on her, she pushed him off and said “dude” before alerting a United Airlines flight attendant, according to a trial memorandum, which says Ansari immediately “pretended to be asleep” afterward.
The flight attendant then “helped (the woman) inform American Airlines that (she) would not be able to work on her scheduled flight to Japan,” the trial memorandum says.
A federal judge sentenced Ansari, of Diamond Bar, California, to one year and nine months in prison on Oct. 5 for “intentionally touching” the woman’s inner thigh, the attorney’s office said in a news release.
His sentencing comes after he was convicted of abusive sexual contact on May 9, prosecutors said.
McClatchy News contacted Ansari’s defense attorneys for comment on Oct. 6 and didn’t receive an immediate response. United Airlines declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Oct. 6.
“In the immediate aftermath, (Ansari’s) groping left (the victim) shocked and afraid and witnesses testified that she sobbed for the remainder of the flight…. (On flights, the victim) now struggles to fall asleep because she is constantly concerned about ‘what if someone touches me,’” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
According to the trial memorandum, a man next to the woman in an aisle seat witnessed the assault.
When the United Airlines flight attendant called this passenger up to first class about what happened, he said “he did not do anything to stop (Ansari) because he did not know their relationship since they arrived at their seats close in time and thought they might be together,” the trial memorandum says.
Upon the flight’s arrival to Los Angeles International Airport, FBI agents interviewed Ansari, according to the trial memorandum.
Ansari told agents he “touched (the woman’s) leg, made an ‘error in judgment,’ ‘misread the body language,’ and ‘misread the cues,’” the trial memorandum says.
In a sentencing memorandum submitted on Ansari’s behalf, his attorneys argued he’s flown “several hundred flights without any incidents” between April 2010 to February 2020 and that what he’s been “convicted of is not typical behavior.”
In 2022, the number of sexual misconduct cases aboard flights in the U.S. more than tripled since 2018, according to federal prosecutors.
Growing number of sexual misconduct on flights
Last year, the FBI investigated more than 90 sexual misconduct cases — and 2023 “is on pace to surpass” that number, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington announced in an Aug. 9 news release.
The FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office has issued a public service announcement about sexual assaults on flights and how the agency is in charge of investigating such crimes.
“Most passengers travel by air without incident, but if you or a loved one encounter sexual misconduct — whether physical or verbal — please alert your flight attendant immediately because timely reporting is important for responding investigators,” Donald Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said in the announcement.
Tips to the FBI can be submitted here.
Diamond Bar in Los Angeles County is about 30 miles east of Los Angeles.
This story was originally published October 6, 2023 at 7:47 AM with the headline "Passenger gropes off-duty flight attendant asleep next to him on United flight, feds say."
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