Emirates Passenger Says She Was Sexually Assaulted By Fellow Traveler While She Slept On Flight To NYC

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We’ve asked this before, and apparently we have to ask again: what is wrong with some people? Unfortunately we have to yet again report on an incident involving a passenger accused of molesting a fellow traveler during a flight. This should go without being said, but just because someone is asleep, that does not mean they’re giving you permission to touch them.

A woman flying on an Emirates flight from Dubai to New York City said a male passenger took lotion out of the seatback pocket where she’d left it and rubbed it on her body while she was asleep, federal investigators said (via The Smoking Gun). He allegedly claimed that he thought the victim “enjoyed it because she did not resist.”

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, the victim said she fell asleep about an hour into the 13-hour flight after taking anti-anxiety medication. She was seated next to a 42-year-old man who lives in Staten Island.

After several hours, she said she woke up and the man asked her “whether she had a good nap.” Shudder. That’s when she realized there was lotion on her arms, chest and up her legs, and that she noticed her hand lotion wasn’t where she’d left it. When she walked to the bathroom, she said she realized “her vaginal area was sore.” She then “saw that her underwear had been shifted and that lotion was in her vaginal area and on her underwear.”

When she got back to her seat she asked the man where her lotion was, and he gave it back to her. That’s when she alerted the plane’s crew, telling them that she believed “something happened to her while she fell asleep.”

The man reportedly admitted to applying the lotion to the sleeping woman, saying that he thought the woman “needed it,” and that the sleeping passenger “enjoyed it because she did not resist.”

He was questioned upon landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport and admitted to “inappropriately touching the passenger, that he knew it was wrong, but he did not specify how he touched the passenger,” law enforcement said. The male passenger was arrested for the alleged in-flight sexual assault and was ordered to surrender his passport and not leave New York City without the permission of pretrial service officials.

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:

• 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

Woman Molested During Flight From Dubai [The Smoking Gun]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist