Stranger than fiction as Federal authorities in Michigan arrested a 34-year-old man after a woman said that he sexually assaulted her on an overnight flight when she fell asleep next to him.
In a report by the Washington Post, the man, Prabhu Ramamoorthy, who prosecutors said is an Indian national living in the United States on a temporary visa, was charged with aggravated sexual abuse and held without bail after an appearance in federal court in Michigan on Thursday.
Mr Ramamoorthy is accused of abusing a 22-year-old sitting in a window seat next to him, while his wife was on his other side, on a Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas that landed in Detroit early Jan. 3.
The victim told investigators that she woke up to find her pants and shirt unbuttoned and the man’s hand inside her pants.
Federal prosecutor Amanda Jawad said that Mr Ramamoorthy sat between his wife and the victim.
He stopped after the victim woke up, and the woman went to the back of the plane to report the incident to a flight attendant, the criminal complaint said.
Two flight attendants told federal investigators that the victim was crying and that her shirt was untied and that her pants were unbuttoned when she reported the incident at about 5:30 a.m., 40 minutes before the plane’s landing,Mr Jawad said.
The attendants kept the woman in the back of the plane and offered her a different seat, and while they were talking to the victim, Mr Ramamoorthy’s wife came to the back to see what was going on, Mr Jawad said.
Mr Ramamoorthy was arrested after the plane landed, according to court documents.
The suspect told agents in a written statement that he had taken a pill and fallen into a deep sleep, Mr Jawad said, and that he hadn’t done anything besides learning from his wife that the 22-year-old woman was sleeping on his knees.
